[Jobe]

A good friend of mine (and an accomplished violinist, may I add) shared this article on Google+ and I thought it was quite interesting indeed.

http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/0...-why-youll-use-it-whether-you-want-to-or-not/

Now, being an introvert, I wasn't attracted by Google+'s similarity to Facebook or anything, but the need to explore. I now conclude that even if all my friends and the people I knew joined it, it'd still be a bit rubbish and I cannot deny that, but it would be too early to judge as far as the juvenile Google+ is concerned.

I believe that the article's correct in many ways and Google+ does feel like Facebook and Twitter combined... sans the celebrities and friends.

If you haven't got Google+ yet I'll throw you an invite if you pm me. I always prefer forums to social networking sites anyway. The great thing about it is you can be broadcasting posts to your friends one minute and chatting to the public the next, both categories determined by yourself by adding the people to "circles" (which you can create yourself). If you are going to join, with freedom add me as an acquaintance and join me in the big celebrity hunt! So far I've found William Shatner, Snoop Dog, some soap star who I'm afraid I didn't follow at this moment in time, but I did find Kenny G!

Oh, and you have to be over 18 (or in my case, pretend to be over 18).

EDIT: OOH, and I forgot to mention that I'll need your google account email address for the invite. I'm only going to invite a max of 30 people if that's okay, so once you get the account, could you too vote yourself as an "inviter". It's very easy. I shall teach you.

 

[Manxfeeder]

I'd like to explore it, particularly for their grouping function. The way Facebook is now, I have friends from church, business, and childhood, so if I put something on my wall relating to, say, church, my business friends get confused as to what I'm talking about, and vice versa. So I'm to the point where I hardly post anything. Also, I'm tired of getting hit up to find things for people who are on Farmville.

 

[Polednice]

I think Google+ is already fantastic, but the greatest thing about it is that I can already see that it has so much potential to be really, truly great.

The idea of 'sparks' is a little rusty at the moment, and I'm not so keen on the results I get, but it's great to have a hub of interests and random articles on those interests appear in my feeds.

There are already extensions available in the Chrome web store that allow full integration with twitter and facebook, meaning that I can post anything to anywhere right from the Google+ page, as well as read everything from twitter and facebook. As such, I never need to use another website - of course, this will only be better if Google adopts this, making an extension unnecessary.

Its sharing and following abilities allow it to be much more fluid than twitter and facebook, essentially allowing it to be anything from a stream of tweet-style updates, to even so much as a blogging platform.

BUT, of all the features, it is the simple idea of circles that makes it an instant winner. I have always kept my facebook contacts to the absolute minimum of my closest friends because, strangely enough, I like to be able to be completely open with my best pals while keeping my private life private from acquaintances and family.

 

[Jobe]

The one thing that annoys me though is that Google might occasionally ask for your number. My friend told me that when he was signing up, he had to provide his mobile number in order to sign up at all. I don't remember suffering this problem myself, however. Did either of you?

 

[Polednice]

The one thing that annoys me though is that Google might occasionally ask for your number. My friend told me that when he was signing up, he had to provide his mobile number in order to sign up at all. I don't remember suffering this problem myself, however. Did either of you?

I didn't have to provide that information either.