Google Plus vs Facebook

By:  John Hanlon

What comes to mind when people hear the phrase social network? Most likely, an image of Facebook pops into their heads. That should not be much of a surprise, considering that the social networking site has over 750 million users. It seems like everybody and his grandma is on Facebook these days. But the new guy on the block, Google+ (Google Plus), is hoping to snatch a large piece of the social networking pie.

One of the biggest complaints from Facebook users is the lack of privacy control. Facebook’s privacy settings are buried so deep, the average user cannot navigate them. Many people do not want private information like their email address and phone number publicly visible on Facebook, but they lack the knowledge to turn off that function. Google+ attempts to fix this problem with “circles.” The idea is that everyone has different circles of friends and acquaintances. Auser might feel comfortable sharing a post with one circle of friends but not with other circles of friends or casual acquaintances. When a user posts onGoogle+, he or she has the option to share the post with specific people, one circle, multiple circles, all circles or as a public post visible to anyone, simply by clicking on the preference circle.

Google+ allows users to add people to circles in a similar way to Facebook’s “Friending” process. This enables the user to easily organize contacts. Unlike Facebook, where a friend’s post shows up in one main stream, a Google+ user can view a stream of posts that are only from a particular circle. For instance, users wanting to see everything happening in their local geographical area simply click on their “Local” circle. The only posts visible will be those from local friends.

Another unique feature of Google+ is called “Hangout” which allows users to group video chat with up to twenty other users. After creating a Hangout, the user can invite individuals, specific circles or just make it public and let anybody pop in on the conversation. Shortly after Google+ was launched, Facebook rolled out their response to Hangout, announcing that they had reached an agreement with Skype to offer video chat through Facebook. However, the two video chat services are not comparable since Facebook’s version does not allow for group (more than two people) video chatting.

Facebook has been available to the public since 2004; Google+ has been available to the public since June 28, 2011. Google+ has only 25 million users compared to Facebook’s 750 million users. But Google+ is growing quickly. Less than two weeks after launching, Google+ had the same number of users that Facebook had after two years. Google+ is currently available by invitation only; however, invitations are readily available through current users. Each Google+ user has the ability to invite 150 others to the service.

Could Google+ replace Facebook as the #1 social network? The potential is definitely there, but Facebook has a footing that will be hard to shake. Grandma is not on Google+, and she probably will not be there any time soon.  But it might just be sooner than most people think.

Related Content Episodes: