Are You Ready For Google+?
July 24, 2011 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
What’s Google Plus, you ask? Only Google’s foray into social networking and an attempt to take down Facebook once and for all. That’s right, Google has been looking to corner more of the Internet’s market for quite some time, with Google Buzz and Google Wave, failed attempts at high-demand software which would change the way we work and network. That having been said, a full-scale social networking tool had to come down the pipe some time, and it looks as if the time is now.
As Google’s fledgling answer to Facebook, the start-up site actually has some features that should give the social networking giant a run for its money (granted they can woo enough people over to it and away from Mark Zuckerberg‘s runaway hit of a website).
What features can it possibly have that really rival Facebook? For one, better privacy.
Facebook has come under heavy scrutiny for its liberalism with people’s private and personal information. Google+ is looking to exploit this as an opportunity to woo identity theft-leery users. One of the ways they approach the issue is to provide literal circles of friends on the site. You group all of your friends into different circles or categories, and then you choose which photos, documents, videos, etc. to share with each circle. If you don’t share these things with a certain circle of friends, they don’t get to see it.
Probably the major feature that will make Google+ a formidable rival to Facebook is a little something they like to call Hangout. Basically, it’s a video chat feature that allows up to 10 people to participate in a video conference call take that, Skype.
Speaking from personal experience, this feature works really well. However, people might be less excited about it now that Facebook announced video calling (for the record, this was announced following the buzz that initial previews of Google+ garnered).
Now that most smartphones function as digital cameras for their owners, you will automatically be able to upload photos taken on your mobile device to your own personal folder. You decide who to share them with whenever you want although I’m not sure how that fits in with the better privacy initiative. Other features include a suggestion tool, which shows you pictures, videos, and pages based on interests you type into a search engine, and a mass message feature that allows you to group chat or text with several users at once (for instance, to decide which movie to see and what restaurant to hit afterwards). The smartphone app for Google+ has already hit the Android and the iPhone, by the way.
Of course, the standard features like status updating and such will be there as well, along with the option to ‘follow’ other users, a la Twitter.
On the downside, the chat feature is pretty awkward, requiring you to type in e-mail addresses to chat with friends. Furthermore, there is nothing to show you who’s online at any given time, meaning that chats need to be more scheduled (when Google is supposed to make communicating less complicated). The ability to write on “walls” doesn’t exist yet, either. Best you can do is tag someone in a status by using the @ or + keys. It’s still in the limited trial edition, however, and those guys are certainly smart enough to figure out something better.
As you can see, I’m already there. We’re willing to send invites to as many people as we can as long as you post a comment (just make sure you include your e-mail address)! If not, it’s set for an official launch July 31.
To find out more about Google+, click here.
Source: Yahoo
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