Google+ vs Facebook

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Google+ is the latest news on the social media circuit. When a giant like Google comes up with a new social networking website, it is sure to create waves. But people are not migrating to Google+ from Facebook en masse. Geeks, of course, are the first ones to try Google+. The reviews have been hot and cold. Some predict Google+ is going to crush Facebook; others are sceptical, thinking it just a copy of Facebook and/or Twitter.

If you see some history and look at how everybody left Orkut for Facebook, you will realize how difficult and how easy it is to get millions of users (500 million, in the case of Facebook) to migrate from one site to another. To make it happen, Google+ has come up with various applications and aimed the arrow at privacy.

Circles: The very first thing you notice when on Google+ is circles. On Facebook, everybody is your friend; your acquaintances, your husband, your colleagues, your in-laws. Your status update is visible to everybody. On Google+, you can move between various circles. You can add new circles, name them. You can have private conversations, sharing with people. This is a big hit for Facebook where there is not much control over privacy. At the same time, it can backfire. Facebook encourages you to connect and share. With everybody. You see photographs of acquaintances and sometimes click the Like. That breeds familiarity. If you shut them up in a circle called Acquaintances, you will hardly be interested in that circle. It would seem to you a waste of time to go and chat with them, majorly because they are mere acquaintances. This will lead to a closed society where it will be difficult to create new friendships.

Sharing: Google+ went one step further than Facebook with sharing. On Facebook, you can only see a couple of shares back on who all shared an update. On Google+, you can get the guy who shared it first. This is a great way to get to know the people who bring in new and exciting stuff to social networking from the net.

Privacy: The newest kid on the block also took some tips from Twitter. Google+ allows you to follow people without adding them to your circle. More like Lists (private and public) on Twitter.

The bad side about privacy is that when it will create a ready distinction between broadcasting and sharing, something that is not there on Facebook precisely because everything is for everybody. On Google+, if you make a status public, that means broadcast to all your circles, it should be important enough to be called public. And what does your daughter’s photograph go? Family? Friends? Strangers? This is another problem Google+ users will face because of circles. People might even accuse you of spamming them if you make you tell people about what new you did at work (book launches, photographers, developers and so on). How would you know who is interested in what?

I don’t know whether Google+ will be able to shut out Facebook, but the jump from Orkut to Google+ is impressive.