Yesterday was my birthday, and – what do you know? – I got an invitation to join Google+. Pretty exciting! I was one of the first of my friends to get on, so I had the opportunity to invite a lot of my buddies and colleagues. My inbox stayed full today with notices from Google that another one of my contacts had joined the network, and would I like to add her to one of my circles. Circles, by the way, are what sets Google+ apart from other services in this space. As a friend pointed out today, Google+ is kind of like a combination of Twitter and Facebook. You don’t friend people like in Facebook; you follow them like on Twitter. Come to think of it, all day people have been comparing Google+ to Facebook, but it’s actually a lot more like Twitter than one would think at first glance.
Another feature I really like, related to circles, is the stream. Streams are like the Facebook news feed, except they only contain posts and updates from members of a particular circle. I love that I can separate my feeds that way. When I started putting people into circles, it was based on their role in my life: colleagues, friends, family, &c, &c. But now I am reorganizing my circles based on what kind of streams they will produce. For example, some contacts only posts jokes, funny videos, and whatnot, so I’ve created a new circle called funny for them. For those who generally share information about computers, I’ve created a group called computers. See where I’m going with this?
I just started this evening with sparks. Sparks are lists of topics I am interested in, and streams associated with that topic. I’m not really sure what their importance is yet, but I have a few just in case it’s useful to.
So that’s my first impression of Google+. If you want to connect, visit my profile and add me to a circle. Cheers.