I can hear the collective scratching of heads across the world as people are pondering whether they should use Google+. Your tech/web friends have all loudly blabbered about it on Facebook or Twitter and now you are wondering what the fuss is all about? Bandwidthblog has a write-up here to educate yourself on what Google+ brings to the table.
Should you jump ship, abandon your farms and party photos to a new social network? Not yet. Google+ is experimenting with a new model of online interaction, called ‘Circles’ (which is similar to Diaspora’s ‘aspects’).
Facebook’s interaction is simple. If we accept, we both see each other’s information: a simple handshake if you will. Twitter’s interaction is asynchronous: I follow you what you say, but it is not necessary to reciprocate and follow back.
Google+’s interaction is a bit more complicated. On the get-go you add individuals to certain circles of your life (‘work’,’friends’,’music buddies’, etc). When you share something, you share it with whatever circles you choose. Once that funny cat video is shared, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the people whom you intended it for will actually see it. If they don’t add you to a circle, it will appear in the ‘incoming’ stream (incoming stream? what?). Another important thing to note, is that ‘circles’ are known only to you. If you add “Rob Bikeperson” to “Biker Mice from Bars”, they will only know that they have been added to “a” circle, but not which specific one. In other words, you have your own context about the certain circles of your life and another person has their own context.
Are you lost?
Exactly. Here is a graph to make it easier to understand. Click to enlarge:
Still lost? Exactly.
Some web enthusiasts are claiming the downfall of Facebook (and Twitter). To me Google+ just works differently. It is a new and interesting experiment around the idea of putting different facets of your life front and center. Putting it online comes with its own territory.
Google+ as it stands now is for users who are information consumers. The majority of users on Facebook aren’t facing this problem to such an extent that they would take the effort to understand a new model such as Google+. It’s an important iteration, but not the killer social network that it wants to be.
Graph: By Lee S. translated and reposted by Axel Aigret, Cyril Galliné and Nathalie Gilson. You can view it here.
