Source: Gizmodo, Google+
Google announced a new social-oriented service earlier today, Google+. Currently it's only available to invited users, and the
Android App isn't available in all countries yet. It's an ambitious project, aiming to murder the existence of Facebook, Twitter, Flickr (or any photo-sharing website), RIM, Skype, iMessage (which is the
least of worries).
Let's take a look at what features it provides,
in the most biased manner.
Circles
Attempts to kill: Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, Buzz (yeah) and ALL Social Networking websites.
Why?
Circles, in short, is like Facebook's Groups, Twitter's Lists, but not exactly. It is a personal grouping of friends, in the way you want to share private information, interesting links, embarrassing photos, and anything you don't want to share with the entire world.
For example, you won't want to share a video of your best friend throwing up while dancing on a toilet bowl with your students if you're a teacher. You wouldn't want to share photos of your secret hobby with people outside of the highly-secretive group a bunch of think-alikes have formed.
Sparks
Attempts to kill: Twitter mainly, in some cases Facebook Pages.
Why?
Sparks is like a list of trending topics, except it is not limited to merely words. It is always there, always ready for you to search for interest groups, and easily add to your list in the left column. It shows the currently popular activities and trending search words, so you're bound to be able to find the latest discussion on the next presidential election, or the opinions on the latest Lady Gaga fashion disaster, or the Nexus 3.
Couple that with +1, it will be easy to find what your friends like and recommend.
Facebook Pages is a disaster and a total mess, although there is the ability to arrange items in the left column, it's cluttered with stuff you never want there. Together with Notes, Photos etc.
Hangout
Attempts to kill: Skype, FaceTime (and iDevices), and all video-chat services.
Why?
Multi-way video chatting. Sure it's not new, the iPad 2 has it. And many other technologies. But often than not, the quality isn't very good. Even on Wi-Fi.
During Google I/O, Google has announced that they have optimised the quality of video-chatting on Google Talk. There is no reason to doubt that similar technologies have been applied in Hangout.
Hangout, on top of that, has two features:
-Focus on the current speaker, so you know who's the main speaker at any time. Ask anybody who tried video-chatting with a few people, it's a common frustration, in nearly every call, when your friends don't cooperate and speak at the same time. What Hangout does, is to identify the most prominent speaker at any point of time and let people focus on him/her.
-The reason why it's called "Hangout". It differs from other services in that it allows people to only activate video chat and be in a 'standby' mode when needed, and only show to specified Circles. Within that Circle, anybody in a similar mood can drop in and out of the Hangout at any time. Instead of a purpose-oriented video chat, Hangout is more passive, and encourages people who are similarly bored to, well,
Hangout.
Huddle
Attempts to kill: Blackberry Messenger, all internet-messaging apps, iMessage.
Why?
So far it might not be a killer of those services, being only available on Android phones. (I'm not sure if it works on the web app)
However given Google Talk's high-quality chatting with no message loss and seamless transition from phone to PC and back, we can expect a similar service to be available on Huddle as time goes by.
There have been
rumours of Google working on an instant messaging app, and there is no reason to doubt it is indeed Huddle.
This is pure speculation, but given the name "Huddle", it might indicate more sharing options than just pure text messaging. You huddle with friends to share photos, videos, music and files. I strongly believe Huddle is far from being complete as of now.
Mark my words.
Instant Uploads
Attempts to kill: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (and all similar services), iDevices.
Why?
Transferring photos from a phone to a computer is a pain. Even though sharing on a phone has been made really easy on Android, and less so on iOS, nothing beats a hassle-free sharing service.
Instant Upload transfers all your photos (if you allow it to) you take with your camera to Google+, where it remains private until you choose to share them with the Circles of your choice.
Sure it down-sizes your photos to enable quicker transferring, but only photos above 2048x2048.
It provides:
-Unlimited photo uploads. Photos larger than 2,048 by 2,048 pixels will automatically be resized when uploading.
-Unlimited video uploads (up to 15 minutes per video, up to 1080p)
Yes, 5GB is not enough for us.
Notifications
Attempts to kill: All social networking websites.
Why?
Ask yourself how often you use Google Search.
Google is basically creating an ecosystem that rides on top of its search engine. Which means as long as Google Search (and actually ANY Google services like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Documents) is being used, notifications will appear (in red), and tempt one to click on it.
No specific websites to visit, no extensions to add into the browser. Just
Google.
However, I must admit that it is possible that the Facebook notification spam syndrome might occur similarly in Google+, depending on how one uses the service. Not many people are interested in clicking a notification button that has a 3-digit number. We'll see about this.
Conclusion:
Google is definitely aiming for
World Net Domination with Google+, extending their reach even further. So far I'm liking what I see, and I can't wait for the floodgates to re-open for the invites to start flowing out again. I'm putting big stakes in Google+ that it will be a big thing, whether diehard Facebook fans like it or not.
On top of that,
Google Games are incoming. Gmail and Google Calendar has also got a
major facelift to fit in with Google+ design philosophy more.
Take that, internetz.
