What Google+ Means for You

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Photo Credit /www.techkeyla.com

There has been a lot of hype in the last week or so around the launch of Google+, the new social media project from the search engine juggernaut. Even the talk about the rumors surrounding the fall launch of iPhone 5 have been dwarfed by the topic. I have not yet had the pleasure of gaining access to G+, but I am awaiting my invite any day.

Based on preliminary reviews and the features that it claims to have mastered, I believe G+ has great potential to take on Facebook and Twitter. I think there are a couple reasons for this. First of all, we all have Facebook and Twitter accounts right now. You probably have a LinkedIn account, maybe a WordPress account, and if you like to keep them all organized, you might have a HootSuite account as well. So even if you like one of these accounts more than the others, you still have the others. That tells me that there is still room for yet another social media account, provided we like it. Google has failed in this arena before because they have tried to lead us (the end-users) down new roads that were dark and scary. With G+ they have changed their tune.

The second reason that users will try out G+ is that I believe users are getting bored with Facebook. It serves its purpose, but there is no flair to it anymore, no pop. Google+ will look a lot like a Facebook ripoff at first, but I believe people with use it, because it is new. And Google hasn’t tried to reinvent the wheel this time. It has taken everything we love about social media an made it better.

Google+ Circles will allow users to creates specific friend groups easily. Just drag and drop your contacts into groups or several groups and you can instantly keep you work friends separate from your real friends (no offense to anyone working with me). Mom and dad no longer have to have feelings hurt by being excluded from friend lists, and you can still get important information out to the people you want to without broadcasting to the world.

Hangout is another feature of G+ that may have the potential to take over where Skype has the lead now, allowing you to video chat with any of your friends on the same account. Picasa is also integrated into it. Additionally, next time you Google something, probably in the next few minutes, look for the little +1 button in your search results. That is G+’s version of the Like button. Get used to it, because it will soon be integrated into everything you do on the Internet. Your entire Internet experience is about to change, and Google will rule your social life.

One last point on this. I definitely think that Google+ will be a game changer in social media. Revolutionary, maybe not, but it will take off. They have figured out how to put the whole online package together. If they have apps, even better. In their business version, which will release later, I expect that everything GMail, GoogleDocs, and Google+ does, not to mention Blogger and the search engine, will be fully integrated into one giant product. All of this also leaves out the fact that Google Android will have all of this integrated as well. This will be a new direction of social media.

What are your thoughts?

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