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After just a few weeks Google+, Google’s new social network, has reached nearly 18 million users.  There is no doubt that Google will make this work after several false starts like Buzz and Wave, but what exactly is it, and should you bother getting involved?

As part of their Google+ announcement Google have said:

“Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online. Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools.”

“In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.”

And although it pains me a little I tend to agree with them.

As I write this “invites” have been suspended again due to high demand.  That said a lot of this is early adopters and internet geeks (yes I have an account before you ask…) just checking it out.

In my previous post I covered the fact that Google+ was not yet a business application but like all promising networks it’s great to get in early and start to understand a bit more about it, so when it opens up to businesses you are ready.

WHAT IS GOOGLE+

In simple terms it’s a new social network that hopes to compete with Facebook. You need a Google account, a Google public profile, and an invite to join.  It’s made up of the following components.

PROFILE

Your personal information, and its public. Not dissimilar to Facebook and you’ll need one to get a Google+ account. If you log in to your Goggle account, in the top left if you don’t have a profile you’ll see a “create a profile” option. It’s that simple. INSERT IMAGE

STREAMS

A bit like your wall. Sorry I keep referring to Facebook but it’s true. This is where you see info from your friends or other people trying to connect with you.

CIRCLES

This is the most interesting component for me. In my opinion one of the failings of Facebook has always been the difficulty of segmenting your friends.  For example I have several interests and what’s interesting to one friend will not be to another.  I’ve always felt it would be great to be able to simply create groups of friends that can also be in multiple groups, so I can keep in touch on specific topics of interest as well as receiving stuff that’s relevant to me.

Facebook supporters will argue Facebook groups can do this but it’s very hard work.  Google are offering  Circles as an easier option, and it is.  You can drag friends into circles in a second as well as having them in multiple circles.  It’s simple and effective, and gets my vote.

HANGOUT

This is an interesting feature.  You can pop into your hangout and tell your friends you’re there and see who pops in for a video chat.  Businesses may find this useful for multi user video conferences as it supports up to 10 online people at the moment.  Who knows where the future will take this.

SPARKS

Sparks looks for things that might be of interest to you online and adds them to a Google area to allow you to view them when you’ve got spare time.  Does anyone have spare time anymore! Personally I already have several streams delivering more “reading material” than I can handle, so it’ll have to be very good to get my attention.

HUDDLE

I quite like this and it’s a really a subset of Circles.  It’s instant messaging for Circles and could be useful in a number of ways.  Nice idea.  Conference calls for texts.

INSTANT UPLOAD

This has been done so many times already with Flickr being the largest but Google are trying to make uploading pictures to share even easier.  You be the judge.

MOBILE

Yes Google+ has an app on all the mobile platforms.

CHAT

Google have always had chat but now it’s integrated into Google+  If you’ve used Skype, MSN or Yahoo for online chat this is more of the same. However with Circles and Hangouts it adds a different and more interesting twist.

I hope you’ve found this useful. As always I’d enjoy any feedback or comments.

Google is planning to introduce Google+ for businesses before the year is out, allowing companies and brands to create profiles in Google+ without using individual accounts and workarounds.

Business are being asked not to register with an individual account to try and beat the gold rush. Google are even saying that they will delete all user accounts that are for businesses if the business is not part of their current business “experiment”.

Here’s a link to a short video giving you more information on this very important new development featuring Christian Oestlien. Christian Oestlien on Google+ for business

So what’s been happening?

Google has entered the social media foray with +1 which I’ll explain in a moment, and Bing teamed up with Facebook last year to offer friends opinions as part of search. On the face of it Bing’s move was a real coup as it gets access to Facebook’s massive user base. Google was so rattled that it’s responded with +1.

I’ve covered the rise of Social Search in a previous post and clearly Google took notice (just kidding). Google have actually had Google social search for a while but it’s not been widely rolled out and there is no support for a “Like” button hence the appearance of +1.

WHAT’S GOOGLE +1?

Say you are looking for a hairdresser and your search brings up 7 businesses. If anyone in your Google contacts list has +1’ed (not as catchy as Like) one of the hairdressers you will see this in your search results.  The caveat is that you have to be are logged into Google and have a public Google Profile page. Take a look at Google +1.

The +1 button is competing with the “Like” button on Facebook but Google are coming from a long way behind and the next 12 months should be interesting. You can add a +1 button to your web page, the only problem might be finding space, what with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, a Blog and now Google +1, our pages are beginning to look a little busy.

WHAT ARE FACEBOOK AND BING DOING?

In a recent announcement Bing has enhanced the way it takes data from Facebook such as Likes and Interests.  This originally happened in October last year and has just been enhanced for more accurate results. It now uses this information to present you with more relevant search results by “understanding” you better.

There is a huge debate as to whether the Facebook Like feature has a major relevance to search but there is no doubt Social Search when done properly will bring more relevant results assuming, you’re not just after good old information.