Update: This article “Google adds enterprise social networking features to Google+” (Aug 29, 2012) is what I was expecting when I wrote this blog post below, days after Google+ was released in July, 2011.
Some may consider me an avid social media user. I enjoy using social media and mobile devices for personal and professional use. When Google+ was introduced a couple of weeks ago, I was very intrigued by its features including the following:
- Circles provide a way of categorizing Google+ contacts into groups. This feature also borrows from twitter in that there’s no mutual approval needed to be connected.
- Huddle is a group messaging system via your mobile phone.
- Hang out is a group video chat up to 10 people.
- Sparks is a personalized content feed based on your interests
- Instant Upload provides users ability to upload images/videos to their private album from their mobile phones.
- Checkin which provides user ability to “checkin” like foursquare and facebook Places.
I was particularly impressed with the concepts of Circles because it seems to be so much more straightforward than facebook in managing lists and thereby easier to target the recipients of your posts.