I’ve been testing out, using, and utilizing Google+ now for 5 days.  I’m proud to say that I was in on Google+ on Day 1,  because it’s like being in the ground floor of a building that’s being built around you.  There’s tons of activity, lots of potential, and builders who are actively listening to the ideas and concerns that their new tenants have.  Let me introduce you to the basics first, then I’ll share my overall thoughts.

What is Google+

Google+ is Google’s answer to Facebook/Twitter, in a nutshell.  In it, you can divide people into “circles”, share content with them as you see fit, upload photos and video, and communicate with them however you se fit.  Those +1 buttons popping up over the web are being put to good use now, serving as the “like” button that Facebook users are so used to.

The community is still small and intimate at the moment, and there’s lots of great discussions going around.  I’m privileged to see social media superstars like Chris Brogan and Scott Monty dropping by my updates to leave their insight or comments.  Ashton Kutcher is there getting his groove on as always, and even Newt Gingrich is poking around to see what this is all about.  Still, I’ve seen more discussion (legitimate discussion) happening over the last week on topics than I ever did on Twitter or Facebook.

Circles

You share information by categorizing people into “circles” – you can name them whatever you like, and those become the holes in which you fill your content.  You can take the fire-hose of content if you wish, but you can also only consume “friends” or “chess club members” to really dive down to who’s saying what.  It also controls who gets to see the content you produce.  If I put Holly into the “family” circle, and only share the update with her, she’s the only one that sees it.  What happens when Luke and Kieran are old enough to join? We get our own family communication board that no one sees but them.  Pretty cool

Picasa Photos

Anyone who has used Picasa knows what it’s all about.  It’s photo storage.  If you use Google+, you get any photo under 2048×2048 resolution stored free – which isn’t too shabby considering most monitors display up to less than 2000px at the moment.

Hangouts

You can start a video chat with up to 10 people – that’s 4 more than Skype – and open it up to let anyone who wants to jump in and chat.  I see a lot of potential here.

The Bottom Line

Google+ has hit the ground with Hussain Bolt speed.  There’s a lot of stuff going on that has quite a bit of potential, and they’re already doing a LOT of stuff right.  Look for this to get even better as it expands.

By the way… if you’re on, find me whydoncha?

Note:
I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with any of the things I talk about -
this is just me putting information out there to think about, and you
can make your own decisions about it.  You’re not sheep – I won’t treat
you as such.

Isn’t it ironic that we have a bit of a double-sided coin going on the Internet at the moment.  There’s a huge debate going on between Apple and Google, Flash and HTML5, over proprietary software.  People are clamoring for Apple to open up their platforms to allow all types of programming (Flash, specifically) instead of closing their boxes.  So, what do people do?  They tweet about it.

On the flip side, those tweets you’re sending out can now be used (and monetized) by twitter for any purpose whatsoever.  What’s more, is that if you post a tweet on your site, and it causes you to get ad revenue, Twitter is legally entitled to a share of that, because you are re-purposing their content:

In cases where Twitter content is the basis (in whole or in part) of the
advertising sale, we require you to compensate us (recoupable against
any fees payable to Twitter for data licensing).

Scary stuff, eh? Your tweets, open to the free world, can now be used by Twitter for anything, including making money.  Makes you want to read those TOS clauses more closely.

So, I want to know what you think.  Where do you stand on either front?  Sure, Apple makes more money locking it’s hardware down… or does it?  Or, should Twitter really have as much power as it seems to with it’s latest Terms of Use update?

Got a really interesting email today – thought I would share it with you guys:

Dear Google Apps admin,​

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 ​as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,

The Google Apps team

I really don’t remember when a company so large has taken a single outburst against a single browser, but this is a huge step by Google moving closer to a “standard web” – and a day when designers everywhere will rejoice!

Any thoughts on why this is (or isn’t) a good idea?