Google+ has been released in a limited fashion to the public. I took a head first dive into yesterday and it seems to be a legitimate threat to other social sites. I'm not going to predict this is a Facebook (FB) or Twitter killer, but it appears that Google+ is certainly capable of giving them a run for the money. 

What gives Google+ the edge? Google+ looks like a great new social networking service that combines features from Facebook and Twitter, and throws in a handful new features that all work together forming what may well be a social Utopia! The question becomes, can Google successfully scale this application to meet public demand? In my opinion Google has proven that it has the infrastructure and know-how to do so. FB has always been quite slow under load and we all know Twitter suffers from the dreaded "Over capacity" errors. Time will tell.

The interface is clean, simple and very easy to navigate and understand. The first thing that I really love is the "Circles." Unlike FB groups, the feature is quick, simple and intuitive. The ability to separate people into groups/categories is exactly what social networks have needed for years, but ignored. The concept is simple, why would I want to share everything with all my peps? With Circles I can have different levels of trust with each Circle, giving me the ability to give granular rights to my "Stream" (wall), photos, videos, etc. Why would I want to show my weekend activities to my "Clients", or business information with "Friends".The answer is simple, I wouldn't. Sure, FB has groups, but it was not well executed and is not very easy to use.

Two other nice features of Google+ are ‘Hang outs’ and ‘Huddle’ which make it different from FB. Hangouts are Group Video Chat and Huddle are Group Text messaging enabled on Phone Devices only. These are features you won't find in other socail sites; I can see these being hugely popular by people and businesses.

One feature I haven't explored much yet is Sparks. Sparks as explained in this video is a way to share common interests with people who share that interest.

Some Screenshots:

I'll be adding more insight on Google+ in the coming months, but in the mean time; what are you waiting for,  get yourself a Google+ account and tell me what you think.

This blog entry is cross-posted from my personal blog.