In real life, relationships are compartmentalized. Life online, on the other hand, can make separating the different aspects of our life tricky. This is one of the shortcomings that Facebook users often complain about and which Google resolves with their own social networking site, Google+.
Google’s SVP for Engineering, Vic Gundotra, stated in a blog post, “Online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.”
According to Gundotra, Google+ makes it possible for users to create different “Circles” into which they can separate their online friends and family, and effectively control the information they share through each circle. Facebook users have to go through a tedious process of creating separate groups for friends and family and then customizing their privacy settings to control what they share with whom.
Gundotra added, “Not all relationships are created equal. So in life we share one thing with college buddies, another with parents, and almost nothing with our boss.”
Google+ also offers unique features, including: “Hangouts” for video chatting; “Mobile” for sharing locations; “Huddle” for group text messaging; “Instant Upload” for photo and video uploading and sharing among Circles; and “Sparks” for delivering Web content into a user’s feed.
Google is king among Internet search engines but it has yet to successfully invade and gain a foothold on the social domain. Facebook remains as the leading social networking site, with almost 700 million users worldwide.
Google and Facebook have been aggressively competing for online advertisers and each one is striving to become the dominant engine for internet navigation. As fierce competitors, Google and Facebook do not direct users to each other’s sites.
Currently, Google+ is only available by invitation as it is still undergoing a testing phase. But Google says Google+ will be made available to the public soon. “We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software,” remarked Gundotra. “We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests.”
