Google Plus VS Facebook: Features
There are some very impressive features that have gone into Google Plus that could really enhance the social experience. To give proper context to these features, I have compared them with Facebook.
Google Plus: Circles
At first glance, Circles seem to be a simple method of categorizing your friends: putting relevant friends in relevant Circles. However, you can also post material and directly interact with members of a specific circle. This is great if you want to avoid mentioning the same thing to two very different groups of contacts.
Google Plus: Hang out
This feature allows users to invite specific contacts or even entire Circles to a video conference. What I like about this is the fact that different participants can invite different people to the conference. The total capacity is actually 25.
Google Plus: Instant Upload
Facebook: As far as we know, there is no comparable feature.
The Verdict: Google+ is the clear winner here.
Google Plus: Pictures
Facebook: The only option is to upload pictures to different groups. However, as I mentioned earlier, this is a very cumbersome process especially because people tend to interact very little on groups. Circles in comparison make the specific social interaction more flexible and meaningful.
The Verdict: Uploading and sharing pictures on Google+ is easier but the only real difference is because of Circles. There are added features but I am not giving it too much credit for this feature.
Google Plus: Sparks
Facebook: posting links on your profile or adding interests to your profile list is quite similar to sparks. There is no great difference here.
The Verdict: I suppose I saved the last for the least, even on Facebook, I doubt people pay a lot of attention to the “interests” on the profile page. However, the only difference with Google+ is that you can post directly to your Circles, which might make the experience better but by itself, it is not much.
Google Plus: Social Sharing
Just like with the Facebook button, you can now add a Google +1 button to your pages. With Facebook it shares the link on your Facebook wall. With the +1 button, it shares the link on your Google Plus page… but unlike the Facebook button, the +1 potentially influences search results when people in your circles searches Google for related terms. This is how the buttons look like… If you’d like to click each of them once, to share this article, that would be much appreciated.
Google Plus: Huddle
Facebook: The chat interface has improved and now you can initiate group chats. One thing I personally dislike is that Facebook displays chat histories and messages together. This really makes it difficult for me to keep track of anything properly.
The Verdict: Google’s chat interface is very simple and hopefully it will probably incorporate the experience it has gained through Gmail Chat. If it does, we are looking at a much better chatting experience. Chat histories are saved into the “chats” on the Gmail page.
What do you guys think?
We know w have not gone into the nuts and bolts of some of these features but we hope this gives people a good understanding of what Google Plus is all about.
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