So it has been about two weeks of me playing with Google+, and even participated in my first ‘hangout’ last week with friends. The featureset is clearly well thought out and yet nimble enough once you figure it out. The concept of ‘circles’ seems to be a large selling point, and knowing I can better manage which content I push to which ‘circles’ I have assigned people to is turning out to be very handy.
With about 100 people know in my circles, regrettably my stream was again starting to look like my Facebook wall before I hid those oversharers. But it is a simple as a click to filter what I want to see in my stream. I also created a circle for ‘oversharers’. Yep, no shame in saying that!
The Hangout feature may be one of the real killer features that prompt me to visit most often. Hands down this exceeds Facebooks chat features. The other evening I logged on to see a good friend currently in a ‘hangout’. A ‘Live’ icon showed up under his name and all I needed to do was click to join.
I hope to see broader integration as G+ grows, something akeen to what has happened in the marketplace with FB ‘Likes’. More businesses and organizations integrating cleanly with G+. I frankly believe this medium will minimize the ‘spammy’ feel FB has grown to accommodate.
It remains to be seen if the masses will come in droves. What I expect to see happen is rather simple.
