5 Responses

1. Don’t worry Professor B., one day G+ will be dead and gone, and your life will be one social media platform smaller.

   That day could come sooner than you think… maybe:
   http://jacobageller.blogspot.com/2011/08/fun-with-google-trends.html

2. This plugin, when it works correctly, integrates your Facebook and Twitter feeds with Google+, allowing you to post things to all three services with one click (when it’s working correctly; mine seems to wig out pretty often): http://startgoogleplus.com/

   I personally prefer G+’s interface immensely to Facebook so I’ve tried to start doing everything from there, though it doesn’t seem to give you notifications properly, and also of course does not handle FB messages.

3. I enjoy the serendipity of my all-inclusive friend “circle” on facebook.

   I do not by and large find it appealing to to have to decide to whom I will post an item, or who should be in what circle. Posting to pre-determined groups what I decide would be of interest to them would deprive me of the joy I get when someone from one part of my life (say, high school, or dog park friends) jumps in to a discussion I would never have thought they’d be interested in. I find these connections often help me break out of the bubble that somewhat characterizes my current close friends. My large facebook friend network is very socially, economically, and politically diverse – and I love the serendipity behind the occasional challenge to group think that happens on my facebook page that comes from that diversity. I’d prefer to let people opt out of my posts on their own facebook page than for me to pre-emptively categorize folks into circles.

   NB: I have not tried Google +. I find facebook groups can deliver some of the functions that I am told google+ circles do.

4. If I were to get item #47,923 on my wishlist, G+ would be better integrated with Reader, and replace Reader’s comments, or at least provide an additional interface for them.

5. I LOVE Google+. The ‘circle’ idea is by far superior to the ‘friend: add me and I add you’ method. But, I have interesting people who post interesting things there (whereas FB is just personal fluff and games) – the only thing missing is links to YOUR blog posts. Everyone else in my circles has caught on, so get on board already, sonny. ;) If you’re clicking finger is exhausted,on the edge of social network burnout and needs reprieve, my vote is to eliminate your cross posts to FB in favor of G+. For selfish reasons, of course. But then, I have you in my read list anyways.

   Since you asked though, here’s a snippet (besides the better content, and better ways of displaying it, from my actual friends) of some other neat things:

   – Book sharing in literary circles: http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2011/08/share-your-favorite-books-with-literary.html

   – Baked-in extensions, add-ins, utilities with Google Chrome, better integration with the remainder of the web via scripts, etc.

   – Video chat/conferencing between multiple parties, even 1 on 1 is better quality and superior to Skype, albeit that already existed with gmail. Nevertheless, the mult-party video linking a long with google docs makes for nice collaborations.

   Infographic between Google, FB and Twitter: http://blog.stefanoepifani.it/in-english/google-plus-facebook-e-twitter-compared-in-an-infographic-english-version/

   But really, I don’t think its like facebook where you can just look at it and think ‘oh yeah thats cool’, nor do I think anyone can convince you by posting any pros or tricks – its something you would need to dig into yourself in order to find the positives or uses, esp the second point above.