Google+ First Impressions

I whined and moaned and complained that I couldn’t get in to the first round of Google+.  A lot of people sent me invitations and tried to get me in, but to no avail, until Google briefly opened the door for some new people last night.  I was in!  Here are my first impressions.

At first, I was underwhelmed.  The interface (especially the streams) take a little getting used to.  It’s nice, but a little harder on the eyes than twitter (with defined tweets) or facebook.  All the videos, links, thumbnails, pics, etc. are all in-line, which is great… but it does take a little getting used to.

I played around a little with the Hangout (group video chat) feature.  This has some real potential.  You can invite people in your circles to ‘hangout’ with you in a video chat. The coolest part of this is that the camera view changes to whoever is talking.  That’s a neat feature.  And, you can watch youtube videos and do other things together as you ‘hangout’.  Very cool.

To be honest, though, I was underwhelmed with the Sparks area.  It really just brings up articles and rss feeds in a search format.  I thought it would be more of a channels format, where everyone could create their own channel and promote it.  I hear that’s coming soon.  But the way Sparks is set up know, I doubt I’ll use it much.

The initial notification settings are a little dumb.  It sends you an email with EVERY single sign-up, comments, etc.  But these are easily shut off in your preferences.

Everything does seem to come into place and start to make sense.  The +1 thingy they’ve been pushing for a while finally has some context and use; and the google profile page now takes on a greater meaning for your online identity.

Circles are really sweet.  What google has nailed is the ability to control the flow of your information.  You can publish to one person or millions… that’s up to you.  You can share pics with just family, your co-workers, your home group, or everyone on +.  That’s pretty sweet, and a feature that’s hard to use in Facebook.  In google+ it’s natural.

Will google+ last?  It’s hard to tell.  It’s addicting, I can say that.  But until they open the door wide open and more of my friends, family, and acquaintances make their way there, it’s kinda sparse.

Is it a Facebook killer?  Um… I’m not sure yet.

Would I love to have everyone on Google+ to test it out?  Absolutely.

What are your thoughts so far with Google+?  I’d love to hear them.

And, you can check me out here, btw.

If and when they open the registration again for Google+, you can go here to sign-up!

Todd