Back in 2008, it seemed that everybody had a Myspace page until Facebook came along and essentially put them out of business. About three years after Facebook was introduced, Myspace had to lay-off about 75 percent of its workforce and dropped to number 85 on the list of most-visited websites. As a result, Myspace no longer exists in most college students’ minds.
Now, people say that Facebook is on its way out because the all-powerful Google has unleashed the next big social network. Google+ is now available in an “invite only” beta stage, and it promises to revolutionize the way we use social networks.
Unfortunately, after using Google + for about five minutes, the average person will be unimpressed. Unlike the massive difference between Myspace and Facebook, there are very few differences between Google+ and Facebook. In fact, Google+ pretty much does all of the exact same things.
There are plenty of similarities. Both Facebook and Google+ have friends lists, status updates, notifications, photo albums, instant messaging, email-like messaging, comments and a news feed. Google has even ripped-off Facebook’s popular “like” feature, renaming it “+1.”
The only new things that Google+ brings to the table are minor and essentially useless. The “Hangout” feature allows video conferences with friends through webcams. While this is appealing, it is also something that Facebook could add in the next update for competition.
The main feature that Google seems to be so proud of is the “Circles” feature. Circles serve as a way to separate friends into categories. This is meant to keep certain people from viewing certain posts. Users can post something to one circle that the other circles can’t see, and vice versa. This is an interesting idea, but it is annoying to use at this stage because it requires users to drag and drop friends into little circles on the page.
Even with the innovative circles feature, Google+ doesn’t have enough content to draw people from the massively-popular Facebook. One of the most important things about a social network is the ability to be social, and unless all of your friends jump ship to Google immediately, you’re going to have to keep both profiles for a long time before you can choose one over the other. The question is: why would you?
Google+ is basically a Facebook clone with no reason to exist. The way that they make people ask their friends for “invites” is a ridiculous way to try to make people feel like they’re joining something exclusive. Anyone can get a Google+ invite, and yet there hasn’t been a single post on my Google+ page in the past three days. I did, however, see somebody “like” Google+ on Facebook, which I found to be beautifully ironic.
