Articles about Google+ are plentiful around the internet. Everywhere you look, someone is giving you their opinion about Google+ and all of them, with possibly an exception of the first article you read, were boring and a waste of time. This person loves Google+ while another person hates it while yet another person has never touched it but somehow has decided to have an opinion about it. Who cares! All social networks are the same, right? Maybe. If you permit me, I will subject you to yet another review article about Google+ in an attempt to explain why I think Google+ is fabulous.
I’m not a tech nerd. I don’t care about terms like “open source” and “algorithm”. I’m not a business nerd. I really don’t have a dog in the fight over which corporation gets the most users from whom to bleed money. I’m just an average internet user: I have above average understanding of my computer, use the internet and my computer for multiple purposes, and have never seen nor have any desire to see The Social Network. Yet I prefer Google+ over Facebook to an extent that I have deactivated my Facebook account and am still waiting for Facebook to permanently delete it as per my request. These are my reasons why:
1. Google+ is Social Anxiety Friendly
Google+ is designed with circles. Like on Livejournal or Twitter, you can choose to read someone’s public content in your stream without needing approval from that person. Like Google Buzz, it compiles the content producers that you would like to see in one spot and, unlike Livejournal or Twitter, content is a mixture of blog posts, images, multi-media, brief ideas, and news. You can organize and manage how you view this content with the circles. It is difficult to feel overwhelmed by information when the stream is so easy to control. You are not obligated to be anyone’s “friend”, thereby removing all personal attachment to the individuals that you have in your circles except for the circle you have named “Friends”. You have more authority to label your relationships, which is psychologically empowering, especially since it is kept private to you.
The privacy settings allow you to control who exactly sees your content and you can toggle this to each post. You can choose a circle, multiple circles, one person or multiple people. You can extend to people in the circles of those who you have circled, have it public to everyone, or have it private so only you can see. While these features do exist on Facebook, they are not prominently available. The combination of personal labeling of content producers with the usability of specifying how you share your content allows greater comfort.
2. It’s Not a Popularity Game
As a thirty-something, I should not have to worry about things like who is the most popular and do I have enough friends and are people commenting and liking enough of what I write. It is easy to feel ignored on Facebook because you will Friend Request someone and they will accept, and then they will proceed to never read or comment on anything you write ever. Why did they accept the Friend Request? They thought it would be rude not to, I’m guessing, but still had no desire to be in my life whatsoever. What’s the point of connecting with these people online if there is no actual connection? Google+ broke that bad habit. You do not have to add someone to your circle who has added you to their circle, nor do you even have to approve them adding you to a circle. If you find a person’s existence offensive, you can block them to prevent being in their circles; but otherwise, who they circle is their decision. The people you add to your circles produce the content that you want in front of you. This can be anyone from your cousin serving in Iraq to former social network mogul Tom Anderson. That is your choice. It’s not about numbers here. It’s about content.
The downside to this is if you produce uninteresting content, you will probably most doubtfully be added to many circles. Facebook’s numbers can give you the impression that you are popular and loved, even if 75% of your “Friends” have blocked your boring posts from their Feed. So, I suppose we weigh the value of a delusion against the challenge of being productive, and decide which is more important. Since this is my article about why I like Google+, I prefer to try my best to produce content other people might enjoy, or at least tolerate, and reap the benefits of reading fantastic content produced by others.
3. Better Content
Due to the lack of a popularity game, we face a challenge of producing quality content. This challenge will phase out the people obsessed with animated gifs because those become boring quickly. This challenge will also snub out the famous “status memes” of Facebook that ask you post a status message to prove you love America or love kittens or love your kids or hate crime or hate poverty or hate child abuse or whatever. No longer will you be taunted for not having the guts to annoying everyone on your Friends List by attaching some lame, often misspelled, regurgitated nonsense to your name. The bar is now raised. While I am not the Reigning Queen of Stimulating Content, I appreciate the standards being higher. It assumes Google+ users are capable of producing quality content that others would enjoy reading.
4. Less Jerks
There’s no better way to say that without resorting to profanity. Only due to the standards for content being raised through peer pressure and the genuine, natural desire for humanity to improve its condition, people generally behave better on Google+. There are exceptions, of course. You cannot stop all jerks from being everywhere, certainly not with the myth that Real Names keep people well mannered. The population of jerk is far less for a very solid reason. The people who are reading the content you are reading are more likely to respond rationally to you because you both want to read and discuss that content. Likewise, you are less likely to become annoyed by the comments of others for the same reason.
While one could argue that this fails to expose an individual to any new ideas, thereby keeping them contained in their private bubble where their present ideas and opinions are never challenged, I disagree. By nature of being individuals, we seek alternate viewpoints, if only to validate our present ideas and opinions. There will always be a wealth of diverse ideas and views being shared across the network, except that in each situation there will be kinder and more civil interaction.
5. The Cloud!
When I first heard the term, “The Cloud”, I thought it was too ominous, like a Stephen King novel; and instinctively, I did not want to be in The Cloud. Then I realized I was already half in The Cloud so what the hey. I began trying other Google products and joyfully became a particle in Google’s photosynthesis. Google+ will integrate Google products to allow sharing information easier for the user. Google has this capability, which Facebook does not, which means Google+ is capable of achieving far more features that benefit the user.
On the same note, Google has improved features already integrated, such as Chat. The user continues to have control over the Chat feature while in Google+, with the same settings that appear in Gmail as well as the GTalk program. It runs smoother and you maintain control.
6. You Can Mute Individual Posts
Google+ has provided the ability to mute a single post, making it disappear from the Stream. This is beneficial when someone whose content you otherwise enjoy posts something you do not like. Do you like how someone continually writes about the different angles facing the pseudonym controversy that’s becoming increasingly more relevant across the internet but suddenly get weirded out because they shared that dead squid reacting to the sodium in soy sauce gif? Mute the squid and move on. Have you read an interesting piece by someone, shared it with your own thoughts, and then no longer wanted to see that post in your Stream? Mute it.
7. Not Everything Is Everyone’s Business
This is huge for me, which is why it’s lucky number seven. Not everything is everyone’s business on Google+. Did you make a naughty innuendo as a joke to someone who would understand it? It won’t show up in anyone’s stream, nor will it be immortalized on the posts tab of your profile. Did someone tag you to make a naughty innuendo that you would find hysterical because of your relationship to this person? That won’t show up anywhere else, either. You are free to communicate on the internet without having every word you speak or have spoken to you being copied as part of an ongoing register.
This also applies to the +1 button. Did you like someone’s post about gay marriage and want to show your support but wouldn’t want your bigoted homophobic boss to know because he’s fired people for less? You can +1 without fear. If you +1 an external site (+1 button extension for Chrome), it will not publish to your Wall and show up on other people’s Feeds. It will be filed under the +1 tab on your profile for others to look at it if they wish.
8. Google Doesn’t Need The Money
Google can sustain itself with continued wealth and prosperity without ever charging a dime for the Google+ service. If Google saw fit to rub it in the face of other social network sites, not a single advertisement ever needs to be seen on any of the Google+ pages. Google has no need to sell user information for profit or otherwise compromise its users with sneaking setting changes, unannounced feature additions that expose users, and mandatory submission to advertisements and marketing. Facebook doesn’t do these things because it’s evil. It does these things to survive and has been very successful in surviving these past years. However, if Google sees fit to never place even a single Google Ad in Google+, Facebook may not have a fighting chance.
While Google is in Trial, there is a handy feedback tab at the bottom right hand of the screen. It is simple to use to deliver suggestions to Google about Google+. We are seeing these suggestions made into reality with roll-outs. Facebook’s feedback system is feeble and, I suspect, mostly ignored by its staff. If the feedback tab remains after Google+ is live to the public, I will continue to be impressed as Google will demonstrate that it does not need to compromise its users for money nor institute structures of the network that the users do not like just to survive. This is big.
9. Google+ Is You, Not Google+
This is an odd concept but I’ll attempt to articulate. Google+ is very “no pressure” in its use. When you upload a photo, you are not prompted to Tag people. When someone has a birthday, you are neither notified via email or right-side column nor prompted at any point to purchase them graphics or wish them a happy birthday. Sure, it was handy to have Facebook remind me that my anniversary is coming up, but in the great scheme of things, people really don’t care about birthday greetings, a list of movies you like, a list of music you like, or a list of people you consider heroes. These were all ways that Facebook imposed itself on how you related to and communicated with others. These are things glaringly absent from Google+. This makes me like Google+ very much.
10. Games are separate!
You can block apps on Facebook, yes, but then you are hassled with having to block apps. There are a hundreds of apps for Zynga’s Farmville alone! Plus, apps are side-stepping these blocks by creating pages that allow users to “share” the posts with the same information that would otherwise be blocked. You cannot block these posts without blocking the person sharing the information. Without an ability to mute individual posts, you can only tolerate the game spam or report the post as spam, indicating your own “friend” of wrongdoing.
This does not even begin to get into the trouble that’s been caused by non-game Facebook apps. You give permission for dozens of apps to take your information and your “friends’” information, create content in your name for all your “friends” to see, and spam your email as well as sell it to others for profit. Is that really worth a fictional hug or balloon or heart?
Google+ has the games on a separate feed. Someone must intentionally post original content to their Circles for non-gaming users to be exposed to game content. While third party permissions are still an issue and one that Google had the power to stop from intruding in on Google+, the organization and containment of the games has been well done.