The Google+ Explosion

In early 2006 Myspace had more than three-times the number of users than Facebook. In four short years Myspace is almost bankrupt and Facebook now has 750 million users worldwide. Since the social network revolution Google has decided that the time is right to jump on the bandwagon. Taking some of the best elements of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and adding some of their own innovation in June 2011 Google+ was launched.

In two short months Google+ has grown to over 25 million users. This comes much to the dismay of Facebook who hoped to go public by the end of the year. This new competitor in such a small market will severely devalue Facebook’s market share. Even Facebook’s CEO has a Google+ account and carries many followers.  Many developers are overjoyed with the emergence of Google+. To develop plug-ins and software to incorporate with the social network Google is only taking a 5 percent royalty from developers, much less than the 30 percent Facebook charges.

While many people see Google+ as “just another social network” there are many technological advances you will find in Google+ that you won’t find in Facebook:

Circles: Google introduces circles their innovative way to separate and manage your friends list. Circles allow you to make sub-groups in your friends list. You could create a circle for your close friends and another for your work friends. This comes in handy when trying to control who can see content you upload.  Maybe you want to throw a work party and only want to invite your work friends, you can simply send the invite to that specific circle.

Hangouts: Hangouts are a way to live-video chat with your friends. You can create a hangout for just one friend or for a whole circle. Multiple Google+ members can live chat in one hangout simultaneously. Imagine you want to watch a football game with a bunch of your buddies who all live in different states. You could create a hangout and all talk and chat about the game live while you watch it.

Sparks: Sparks are a way that Google+ delivers content to you based on your specific interests. You enter terms that you are interested in and Google+ constantly updates you with articles, blogs, and content based off of things you tell it you love or want to know more about. For example, I love baseball so I put Boston Red Sox into my sparks. Every day Google+ will find headlines, game scores, and links about the Red Sox to keep me updated.

As you can see Google+ is shaping itself to be a major competitor in the Social Network industry. It will be very interesting to see what happens when public invites begin this fall.

For more information you can check out these articles:

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Google+adds+more+than+million+users+since+June+launch/5288426/story.html

http://webtablab.com/web/6-google-plus-features-that-you-will-find-missing-in-facebook/

http://googleplustip.com/the-best-google-plus-tutorials.html