If you’ve trolled through any of the big tech news sites within the last two days you’ve seen plenty of critiques of the new Google+ Project, which is basically a way to create groups (or Circles) of people with whom you can share web content. It also has other nifty features such as Hangouts, which Lifehacker describes as “The best free group video chat we’ve seen.”
Huddle is a group chat feature that SlashGear’s Chris Burns says he’ll be using to plan family holidays or outings with groups of friends. Mashable’s Ben Parr says the Sparks recommendation engine feature is “…designed to augment Google+, and if it works as Google designed it, it will create winners and losers in the publishing world, making Google +1 buttons actually matter.”
In comparing the photo sharing feature in Google+ with Apple’s Photo Stream, Gigaom says the two have little in common because “[the Google+] Instant Upload is for sharing [photos and videos] with a wide audience; Photo Stream is for keeping your media organized on devices either you or your close family owns.”
In all, Google+ sounds pretty cool. Could it even be better than Facebook? Computerworld’s Preston Gralla thinks so, for four reasons.
1.) Google+ lets you create circles or groups with which you can communicate different messages, thereby abandoning Facebook’s “one-message-fits-all” approach to social networking.
2.) It ignites conversations through its Sparks feature which delivers custom content about any topic in which you’re interested.
3.) It integrates with other Google services.
4.) It’s better for mobile.
Read more at Computerworld, Gigaom, Mashable, SlashGear, and LifeHacker.
