Foustland

Google has, with a high buzz and limited peek approach, raised the bar on how to launch a product with Google+ (G+). Since the July 1 curtain opening, I have been awaiting the email from G+ telling me that I can dig in. That email never arrived, so I took to poking around on the Twitter and found the GooglePlusTweet group, which serves as a hitching post between G+ users with invites and others who don't. The admin of this tweet list does a good job of announcing when the magical invite button shows up, and when it isn't. So one day, when the door was opened, I mowed through the list of tweets and found a user who was offering invites. I sent him my gmail address, and, he requested that I follow and friend him. So I did that, and got my invite notification from G+.

I did what many before me have done, after a short setting up of my profile and connecting things, I started stalking the famous people who have G+, people, yes Mark Zuckerberg has an account, as does Tom Anderson, who seems to be loving G+. After a little of that, I sarted poking around for some familiar faces, and started creating some Circles.

Circles are the key to the social organization, and organization is something that Google does pretty well. Circles makes it easy to pile a bunch of people who you feel share something, like family members, friends, acquaintances... into little groups. Aimed at giving users the an easy way to share your little digital bits with as many as everyone, with public posts, to specifying that you only want members of a certain circle to see what you are putting out there.

The stream is where you post your thoughts, photos, videos, inks, locations. Just like the facebook wall, but integration of your circles makes it easy to share your family tree history with your family, your night out videos with those who were with you, and breaking news of the city square take over as a public stream. A business focused G+ version is supposedly in the works for Google Apps users which will create an easy method for business using Google Apps to encourage collaboration, sharing, and all those big catch phrases. The Stream sits somewhere between twitter and tumblr and is even being replaced as the blogging platform by Kevin Rose from the Screen Savers (and some other things) redirected his blog address to land on his public feed.

Photos are a big part of our lives, and G+ which integrates Picasa Web Albums turns your mobile phone camera into an instant cloud feeder by automatically posting the photos to your account with the Google photo service when you tie in your mobile phone with the G+ app. The auto upload is configurable, so if you don't want anything to upload, you can switch it off. if you want videos and photos to upload, you can do that too. The other day, there was a bomb scare right outside the building where I spend weekdays, and I was able to give the live cloud publish of photos a try on my DroidX with the G+ app installed.

Every photo I shot was magically beamed up where I was able to quickly and easily post some of the better shots to my public feed. I could have just as easily posted a collections of up to 8 pics to any or all of my circles. See how this integration and organization works?

Sparks is sort of a bookmarking thing, that lets you search, save, and share (or not) various interest areas, like cycling, recipes, sports cars, comics, robotics, soccer, movies, Android, gardening and fashion. I don't know how this particular collection of interest categories was figured though. Either way you can check out these categories, and some collection of articles comes up on the screen.

The Hangout is a group video chat that allows up to 8 people to stare into the webcam of their computers, or front facing mobile phone camera and, you know, hang out. Until a few more of my friends are able and willing to enter G+ I don't see myself hanging out here much. But I do see the "hey, neat" factor in hangout. With FB partnering with Skype for a video chat tool, it is easy to see that face to face communication through video is easier than ever.

There is a Huddle option on the mobile G+ app, but I haven't used it, and don't see how it differs from hangout.  Maybe only for mobile???  I may look into this more in the future.  

I find the freshness of G+ to be a big part why I enjoy it so much. The minimal interface (something that Google is good at), and ease of use, and integration of necessary social tools makes me really like Google+. I also like the promise of it as a social business tool. It is hard to guess whether G+ will put Facebook into a similar situation where MySpace is currently sitting. But more than in the past, with launches for Buzz and Wave, the exclusive small launch that made me "want in" more than it ever did for the other social things. Now that I am in, I will be passing on invites as I can because even with the recent influx of accounts (myself included) it is still kind of a lonely place.  When you get in, give the ol' view account as tool, that lets you see what other people see when they visit your page.  Key to this is Circles.  Have fun.