Last Tuesday, Google unveiled Google +, a new social network project to compete with Facebook.
It is not the first try; in February 2010, Google launched Buzz, a social networking and messaging tool which did not work because it endangers user privacy.
Google + has been built in the realistic way. “Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online. Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools.” said Google on its website, before adding: “In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.”
BASED ON THE “REAL-WORLD”
When Google was building Google +, it was thinking about some real situations and places. For example, “+hangouts”, live multi-person video, has been built to make gatherings fun, fluid and serendipitous. It is supposed to be a virtual pub/coffee where you meet and talk with your friends when you have some time to kill.
However, the main innovation of Google is “+Circles”, which have been brought to make a circle, add your people, and share what’s new with them. You can drag and drop them very easily. You don’t have to share your life with your family, friends, boss and colleagues at the same time. You can share selectively all the time – with circles, as you do in the real life.
However, Google + is very close from Facebook as it has all the main options of a classic social network. However, as XKCD, American blogger of a romance, sarcasm, math, and language webcomic emphasizes ironically, it looks like Facebook but it is not Facebook. Therefore, it could find a public: the ones who have been disappointed with the biggest social network in the world…