A +1 for Google +

I have been using Google + for just a couple of days. I really like it. Thanks Jayadeep Reddy Thum for the invite! It has what I love about Facebook. It does not have what I hate about Facebook. So, there!

One problem I have had a lot with Facebook is my home page would be flooded with useless updates - updates I have no interest in. This guy became friends with seven other people or this girl was tagged in that guy's picture. This dude and four others changed their profile picture. Who cares? And don't even get me started on yes, you guessed it - Farmville and the gazillion other nonsensical games that people play on Facebook.

At any given time, about 75% of my home page on Facebook is absolute junk. There probably might even be a way to turn off all that junk on my feed. But who has the will to find out? That should be the default.

So far, Google + has managed to keep out the junk. But I must wait and watch for a few days before I decide that it truly is well done.

Another problem I have with Facebook is that often I would like to post something only to a selected group of my friends. No way you can do that. So, my posts actually add junk to other people's home pages! Google + has solved that beautifully with Circles. So, now I can create multiple circles of my friends and post stuff only to selected circles! Brilliant!

The Hangout feature where you can video conference with multiple people at once also has been talked about a lot and many people have loved it. I haven't yet got a chance to use that but it sounds exciting.

So far, the ride with Google + has been excellent. If this continues, I am going to bid adieu to Facebook very soon. I am hoping all my friends on Facebook also move to Google +. The only catch - you still need invitations to be able to sign up!

Comments

Unknown said…
>> (quote) Another problem I have with Facebook is that often I would like to post something only to a selected group of my friends. No way you can do that. (/quote)

Actually, you can. It's just not obvious. Facebook has had something called "Lists" for quite some time now. You can make a post visible to a "list" of people or view news feeds _only_ from that list. In Google+ land, those lists are called "Circles", with a fancy UI to manage them.

Google+ makes it easy to post to specific people, though I like the implementation on Ayloo the best. Unfortunately, Google will get the credit for "inventing" that feature because it has all the audience.
Kamal D Shah said…
Thanks JD for the tip! But that's just my point. This is such an important feature for me and I had clue it even existed!

And where can you go about creating a list? Inside the Friends page. I am not sure how many of us go to that page often.

Ayloo? How many people have heard of that, let alone use it actively? Heck, I am having nightmares convincing people to move to Plus despite it being such a huge hit in the first few days of Beta! Yes, I guess its all about the audience!
madhava said…
A few points Kamal
1. all these social networking sites are a passing fad, many times it is I, me , myself.
2.do you remember orkut ? No. It has faded away and recently i read that people in Europe are unsubscribing from Facebook.
This was before Google + arrived.
today Facebook is dominant, tomorrow Google +,the day after another will come up.
3.regarding the invitation issue, initially gmail was by invitation , now it is not. whatever it is , it does not alter a person's real life difficulties.
santhaji said…
all posts by farmville can be kept out by right clicking on any farmville post and you get an option "hide all posts by farmville".
MadhavChiliveri said…
I feel like all social networking sites are similar, only difference is the change in futures name or UI.More over friendly UI is going to catch the people.