There’s no shortage of opinions about whether Google+ is the next big thing, a facebook killer, or whether it will even be widely adopted (+Larry Page claims over 10MM users). As for me, I think Google+ is here to stay, but I don’t see it as a Facebook killer. At least not yet. And instead of trying to clumsily articulate all the sharing applications at which G+ excels, I want to share with you the thoughts of +Mike Elgan which I believe to be some of the most eloquent summations of G+’s potential power:
“Here’s what I love about Google+ in general and the Google+ Diet in particular:
Instead of saying, “I’m going to write a blog post now,” or “I’m going to send an e-mail” or “I think I’ll tweet something” you simply say what you have to say, then decide who you’re going to say it to.
If you address it to “Public,” it’s a blog post.
If you address it to “Your Circles” it’s a tweet.
If you address it to your “My Customers” Circle it’s a business newsletter.
If you address it to a single person, it can be a letter to your mother.
I’d say this is pretty revolutionary.”
And while G+ might not yet be the most robust blogging platform, in my humble opinion, it is better at being twitter than twitter, better at being a newsletter than most newsletter applications, and could potentially be better at email, then well, email.
And these uses don’t even begin to touch on the variety of potential collaboration applications that G+ is likely to further evolve to facilitate.
And while, for now, facebook excels for seeing pictures of your friends’ babies, there are a variety of things that G+ already does better than fb. However, the most important seems to be the intent and composition of the user community.
As Google+ becomes more fully integrated with search the rest of Google (which is my guess of where it is going), it becomes less likely that it will suffer the same fate as wave and buzz.