G+ set to take on Facebook

If you haven’t heard of the latest social network — set to be Facebook’s main competition — Google+ has swelled in recent weeks to over 25 million users, making it the fastest-growing social media site to date.

While most people are really excited to dive into a new Internet space, I have to say all I could think was “Really! Another social media site?” It turns out Google+ has some great features, especially for photographers.

The Google+ project (or G+ for short) is technically only in beta-testing mode and not currently open to the general public, although you can sign up and receive an invite from Google without too much wait time right now. Still, they do technically call it a project, as they are working on implementing some new features. So far you can only have a personal page, and not a band or community/business page like on Facebook.

If you are already an avid user of Google’s other services (GMail, Calendar, Docs etc) like I am, G+ integrates nicely into the morning routine of checking your email where, after creating a G+ account, you can receive status updates and comments all in one place.

Google+ has also introduced the concept of circles, where you can group the people you follow in G+. You can make as many circles as you like. I have one for other people who are interested in photography and video production, and you can share updates and photos selectively with each circle.

For instance, you can put your mom in the family circle and she won’t have to look at photos that you took at the last office party that you shared with your work circle.

Google+ has also introduced the Hangout, which is a really quick and easy way to have an on-the-fly video conference with up to 10 of your friends. You can even throw out an invite to your circles, say if you were feeling like talking about photography one night.

Personally, I don’t use video conferencing that much, but I think it would be a useful thing if you had lots of friends from far away. You can also both watch YouTube (another one of Google’s assets) videos together and make comments while watching it, which could be a fun way to spend an evening with a faraway loved one.

Probably the thing I like best about Google+ so far is its photo sharing. You can upload huge photos — 2,048 pixels on the long side — and they look stunningly beautiful with Google+’s large thumbnail gallery, which lays out your photos akin to a magazine spread. Browsing other users’ photo spreads is a treat, and quite a photo community has developed really quickly.

G+’s photo galleries are powered by Picassa, Google’s long-ignored photo sharing service. If you have ever uploaded photos there, they are automatically ported over into Google+. Photo uploading was a snap, and it was quick and easy to create a gallery. If Google adds a few more features to its photo section, I can see it being a big competitor to Flickr, one of the largest photo communities on the net.

I have been using Google+ for about a month now, and to me, I don’t see it as a Facebook killer, yet. It may be one of the fastest-growing social media sites on the Internet, but the crowd is still definitely over at Facebook.

Fan pages and events are crucial for social networking, as is direct messaging. The benefit is that healthy competition usually makes features better faster, which is great for all of us. If Facebook were to implement a feature similar to circles and improve its photo sharing, we’d be all set.

The jury is still out on who will win the title for king of the social media hill, but it will be an interesting battle to watch.

( jharper@herald.ca)

Jeff Harper is a local photographer and video producer and owner of Flying Fish Multimedia. You can follow him on Google+ here: http://gplus.to/banjomanjeff.

Share and Enjoy