Internet search giant Google has unveiled a new social ecosystem designed to compete with Facebook, allowing users to group lists of their friends into “circles”, and communicate and share information with them across the entire Google platform.
The new system, called Google+, comes several months after the company abandoned its first major social networking venture, Google Buzz. The service was shut down last year.
While Google has already trialled some of the Google+ features in beta, last night saw the formal announcement of the new platform. At its core is the use of “circles”, or categories into which users can divide their friends, such as work colleagues or school friends.
Google says it’s an answer to the current method of sharing with friends via rival social networking services, labelling online sharing as “awkward…even broken”.
“The problem is that today’s online services turn friendship into fast food – wrapping everyone in “friend” paper – and sharing really suffers.”
It’s is a thinly veiled hit at Facebook. While the biggest social network in the world allows users to group friends into “lists”, they are complicated and users generally don’t understand how they work.
So far social networking has been about combining everyone into a single list of “friends”. Google says Google+ will break down those categories into smaller groups, allowing users to communicate more personally, rather than throwing out messages to everyone at once.
“In light of these shortcomings we asked ourselves, “What do people actually do?” And we didn’t have to search far for the answer. People in fact share selectively all the time – with their circles.”
Reseo chief executive Chris Thomas says the idea is in beta so far and thus limited in how many people can access its features. “I quite like it so far,” he says.
“Google has millions of people who use their products, but they have never been good at bringing those people together. Google Buzz was an attempt at that, and it didn’t work, so perhaps this is the second attempt to network in a cohesive way.”
The second major feature of Google+ is “sparks”. It allows users to list different interests, and then search for content based on those interests, such as “cycling” or “football”. When they find a piece of content they like, they can then share those with different “circles”, whose members can then comment on the postings, just like on Facebook.
“Sparks delivers a feed of highly contagious content from across the internet, on any topic you want, in over 40 languages. Simply add your interests, and you’ll always have something to watch, read and share – with just the right circle of friends,” Google says.
Another feature is “hangouts”. When users in your circles are online, a button titled “hangout” will appear next to them. Clicking on this will open a video chat window. Google says this combines casual meet-ups with multi-user video conferencing, allowing you to “spend time with your circles”.
In a mobile version of Google+, users can share content with other users in their circle. “Huddle” is a mobile instant messaging feature that will automatically include everyone in a particular circle, essentially allowing a small group of friends to share in a conversation.
Google has also been updating its search bar over the last few days. Instead of a white bar at the top of the page, the various options including “images”, “news” and “maps” are now included in a black bar stretching across the entire screen.
The company says it wants to reduce the clutter on its home screen, but it will also help accommodate Google+ – sharing options will be included in the black toolbar, including the ability to share with different members of your “circle”.
While Google says this is an attempt to create smaller networks, Thomas points out that “like anything with Google, it all comes back to advertising”.
“I don’t think it’ll be long before people start creating networks, and then ads will start targeting them.”
The Google+ Android app is already available, with an iOS app to be launched soon.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
