Google Local and Google Plus are one big ball of marketing fun, and games, and a little overwhelming.
Logging into Google+ for the first time was like looking at beige paint. But after spending a little time looking around it started to grow on me.
The plan for G+ most speculate is to compete with Facebook. But is it designed to compete head-on, or in a category of its own?
One of the differences is the use of “Circles” rather than “Friends” This way you can share specific content with people who are in particular circles. But this means you have to organize your circles – but really good if you want to not be rude and exclude your competitor (who just happens to be your in-law) from your network, but by placing him/her in their own circle, they will only be privy to whatever you want them to be.
That is slightly less cumbersome than the process you have to go through to exclude a person from particular feeds and information on Facebook.
But then again, when you want to message your peeps on G+ you have to select the network of circles you are including in your broadcast.
Huddles and Hangouts – Huddles is a chat application for mobile phone and Hangouts is video based chat room. You can invite others to join in on a chat for meetings or just when you feel like kickin’ it.
The page setup is a little different with uploading of images and information. As well location options are available.
Google+ is the big fish with all its products now able to be tied up snugly in one package. It just takes a little time to navigate around and connect everything just the way you want it.
Different than Facebook is the way a ‘conversation’ on a post is treated. In G+ if you get a new comment on an old post, that post shoots up to the top.
But for all its good points – it is a little confusing. You can tell it was designed by techno-geeks so it takes some patience, trial and error, and head scratching to get the full use out of G+. Lots of features to fuss with.
To get a Google account on G+ you have to have a Google profile. Because of there are several Google services and tools available you may find yourself signed up for stuff you didn’t know existed.
Google+ wasn’t the big hit they’d hoped it would be – so now it is tied in directly with Google Places. The new name is Google+ Local. Now if you want to have a Google Places page you are also stuck with a G+ account.
Are you going to be graded on your use of G+?
