Google+ social network aims to face down Facebook

Remember way back in February of 2010, when Google introduced a social media service called Google Buzz, and all the bloggers marveled that Google was so boldly taking on Facebook? Well, that didn't work out so well. Now Google is really taking on Facebook, and not just in a half-hearted kind of way. Witness the unveiling of Google+, a full-featured social network that aims to "bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software."
"Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online," Google executive Vic Gundotra wrote in a statement announcing Google+. "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. We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software."

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Check the video below for more details, but basically Google+ is a more layered version of Facebook, built around something dubbed "Circles." The idea is simple: You don't have just one kind of friend, and you shouldn't have just one kind of online social circle. So unlike Facebook, Google+ allows you to create a whole bunch of circles – co-workers, for instance, or best friends – and share content and comments specifically with each circle.
Meanwhile, 

Google+ will also get the so-called "Sparks" feature, which is essentially a variation on the Facebook "like" functionality: See something you like, and you can instantly post it to your profile. Of course, since this is Google we're talking, the Sparks button will likely be omnipresent. But have no fear! Google is really stressing the security thing.

"You and over a billion others trust Google, and we don’t take this lightly," Gundotra wrote. "In fact we’ve focused on the user for over a decade: liberating data, working for an open Internet, and respecting people’s freedom to be who they want to be. We realize, however, that Google+ is a different kind of project, requiring a different kind of focus – on you."
That "different focus" comes by way of a dynamic and varied table of security and privacy options – something it took Facebook a long time to do. In fact, Ben Parr writes over at Mashable, just about everything Google+ does is about facing down Facebook.
"The two companies are in heated competition for talent, page views and consumers," Parr writes. "While Google controls the search market and has a strong presence on mobile with Android, it hasn’t been able to crack the social nut. Its most successful social product, YouTube, had to be acquired, and it still ranks as one of the most expensive acquisitions in the company’s history."

Has Google Learned From Social Failure

 
With Google+, it looks like the search giant may have finally built a social product that people will use.
Shortly after Google announced the new social networking service, executives Bradley Horowitz and Vic Gundotra (who are leading the company's social efforts) spoke with Adweek about the lessons they've learned from past failures, both inside and outside Google. The company's most infamous social fumble was its product Google Buzz, which many users saw as a violation of their privacy—as did the Federal Trade Commission. Horowitz said that's symptomatic of of larger problem that he called "overfriending": When you're friends with too many people on a service like Facebook, then you don't want to share anything private. Google+, on the other hand, introduces the idea of Circles. Users divide their connections into categories like "friends" and "acquaintances", then they share things (a comment, say, or a photo) with whichever circle they want.
"We've built a product that's good for a shout and good for a whisper," Horowitz said.
There are other pieces to Google+, like Hangout, a video chat service, and Sparks, where users can find and share content around their interests. And unlike Buzz, Google+ feels easy-to-use and intuitive, rather than overwhelming and confusing—at least judging from an hour or two of poking around. (The service is not yet open to most people, and can only be accessed by those invited to do so; an Adweek editor received a press invite.) Users just drag-and-drop their friends into different circles, then when they're ready to share things, they select the appropriate circle from a menu, or choose to share with everyone.
As people wrap their heads around the Circles concept, there will probably be some confusion. For example, it may not be clear that the relationships aren't reciprocal. You can list someone as a close friend, but that friend might say they're only an acquaintance, or leave you out of their Circles entirely. Still, the system is much simpler than Facebook's rather Byzantine privacy controls.
Here's the bigger question: If people like Google+ as a product, will they switch over even though all their friends are still on Facebook? Gundotra thinks they will—he noted that it's normal to belong to multiple online social services, so people don't have to choose between Facebook or Google. And, he argued, Google+ will become even more useful as new features are added in the coming months, especially as it's integrated with existing Google services.
Integration brings a new set of risks—one reason people freaked out about Buzz was the fact that it was part of Gmail. Gundotra said that gradually inviting users into a "field test" will help Google find the right balance between sharing and privacy.
And, he argued, these kinds of social projects are crucial for Google's future, like it or not.