Google+

I'm going to ignore the fact that nobody reads this blog and revive it anyway. Today, I finally got 'round to joining Google+, and my first impressions are good, I must say. If you have an account, you can follow me here. 

Setting aside the fact that none of my friends use it (although with my 150 invites I plan to try and change that), I had a look around at the features and was quite impressed at how to managed to incorporate the best features of both Facebook and Twitter into this new, clean interface.

The lack of clutter is a refreshing sight (this 'lack of clutter' is what initially brought me from Bebo to Facebook, but now it seems Google+ has taken it to another level), but don't mistake this for a lack of features. It has got everything you'd expect a social network to have, and then some.

The 'circles' feature is an innovative addition. Reminiscent of the Twitter 'lists', only with a much more user friendly concept, circles could and may well take social networking to a new level. The fact that you can filter your friends, co-workers, family, and acquaintances into appropriate categories at ease is a brilliant idea. Also, knowing that the user won't know the name of the circle they have been added to doesn't hurt either (meaning that you can have that circle of 'People I hate but felt obliged to add' if you insist on it).

So, to summarise, I like Google+, a lot. I think Facebook will remain the dominant force in social networking for the foreseeable future, but when Google+ goes fully public I can see it nabbing itself a nice percentage of the market share. I will be using both it and Facebook, until such a day comes (and I believe it will come, as people are always looking for something new) when all of my friends migrate to Google+, at which point I will assume that "haha, I was here before it was cool to be here" position. This, funnily enough, is exactly what I did with Facebook. I was one of the first to join (in my friend group, not out of anyone ever, obviously) purely out of curiousity, but I never really used it all that much until suddenly everyone was there. I see something similar happening with plus.

If you haven't checked it out already, do. I've got about 145 invites left (at the time of posting) if anybody wants one.