Today, Google announced their new attempt at a social network, which they’re calling “The Google+ Project.” It’s not open to the public yet, but they issued a series of videos explaining the idea behind the whole thing. Here’s the first:

Basically, it allows you to put your friends in different “circles” (coworkers, family, girl friends, guy friends) and keep communication tied to that one circle, so your family won’t find out you’re into puppy bondage or what the fuck ever else you’re into, you pervert. There are also things called “sparks” that allow you to find other hobby enthusiasts, and group text messaging and video chat features. It also ties in with the previously unveiled Google +1 feature, which is basically just like a Facebook “Like.”

This directly confronts some problems that have been developing with Facebook lately (Facebook’s groups are unwieldy and obnoxious, and every bit of information basically goes everywhere, unless you wrestle with awkward privacy controls) and also opens up some huge privacy issues (Google will no doubt be including Google+ in their searches, and the social network includes some location-based features that basically mean Google will know where you are all the time). Only time will tell if this will be another Gmail or another Wave, but we can peek into the future with the magic that is a legally binding Blogtown poll:

7 replies on “Google Introduces Their Social Network; What Do You Think?”

  1. Like all social networking tools, it’s only as good as the network…so unless you can convince all of your friends and family to leave facebook it’s going to have a hard time getting off the ground…

  3. I’m stunned that I’m not the only person who thinks that social networking is for assholes. I feel so alone in that sentiment. Maybe I should make some kind of social network on the computer so that I can meet these other people that hate social networking.

  4. Goon, I agree. I’ve never posted anything. Used to check it every once in awhile to keep up with my more loquacious friends. Haven’t been back in months.

    The fact is that 99% of people aren’t that interesting, myself included.

  5. I think social networking is a pretty cool concept. Honestly. My only issues are based entirely in Privacy controls and inability to hide your personal life from web searches. Other than that – it’s pretty cool. I don’t love FB. But it’s pretty fucking handy at keeping in contact with my Epic Bros.

  7. Check out the Appleseed Project! It is an open source social networking project that came up with the concept of “circles”–and called them “circles”–before Facebook even released their unwieldy “groups.”

    It’s still in development, but it allows you to have friends across different social networking sites, so if one site is screwing around with your privacy, you can just jump to another without losing all of your contacts.

    http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/

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