Why Google Plus Could Overtake Facebook

I was lucky enough to score a Google Plus invite on the first day of its beta testing and after a  couple of days playing with it, I’m convinced that it has the capability to outperform Facebook.

Google Plus is all the good stuff about social networking rolled into one.

You can categorize connections with the Circles feature, making it easier to separate work and goofing off.

Google Plus

Google Plus’s pre-filled Circles are Friends, Acquaintances, Family, and Following. I think they missed the boat and should have added Work. But it’s easy enough to add that one. You can make new Circles in a snap.

Upon analyzing the Circle function I think this function will be well-loved function. Now you can have your personal and professional networks all on one social networking site. It’s like having LinkedIn and Facebook altogether. I rarely use my LinkedIn account because it’s not as much fun. But I often wish that I spent more time “hanging out” with my professional network online. With Google Plus’s Circles function, this makes it even more possible.

There are many more reasons to love Google Plus:

• Political correctness: under relationship status you have the option of choosing, (other than single or married), domestic partnership or civil union.
• Resume function, giving it the ability to network with professionals with ease.
• Followers: this gives the social networking medium the feel of Twitter, making me more likely to add people I don’t know, something I rarely do on my personal profile on Facebook.
• Automatically uploads your Google profile, giving your social networking presence more visibility and more credibility.
• Huddle conversations and Hanging Out (video conferencing).
• Data Liberation: you can backup your information from Google Plus onto your computer.
• Sparks: you can easily find new blogs and other information that you’re interested in. Even in beta, this function seems to work with way more ease than Facebook’s Networked Blogs.
• Chat, this function automatically imports all your contacts from Gmail. It might give me the impetus to finally move my more-oft checked personal email from Yahoo to Google.

The cynicism about Google Plus abound, will Google Plus be the next Google Wave? Why is Google being so stingy with their invites feature? Will people really use the Circles feature properly?

I think that Google Plus is the answer many people have been looking for with social networking. It’s a step up from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Its all rolled into one.