In Search…

And thus, with Plus, Google owns us whole.

That is, of course, only one way at looking at Google’s labour of over one year. So for the one year the Google guys sat writing codes, eager to make as big an impact in the social media sector as it has in the mail, search, photo and document storage domains. This time, they were also hoping they would do one better than Orkut, which was literally steam-rollered by Facebook in terms of popularity and functionality, and certainly better than its disastrous Wave. The idea, one supposes, was to create a product that would be a mash of its prime competitors Facebook and Twitter, and slowly edge them out. Will Google + do that?

Google + is still in its snooty, exclusive, I-will-call-you-don’t-call-me phase, but let us remember that was Mark Zuckerberg’s strategy initially as well. Facebook was the privy of exclusive Ivy league schools in the US and UK until the blitz happened. So, invitations are still scarce to come by, not all those in the Plus can extend invitations to friends who are still non-Plused. However, for sure, there are many more being added to my circles every night, nearly thrice the number than I started off with.

But when you are in, you may not notice this, it automatically signs you in on a secure (https) server, significant if you consider the recent controversies over Facebook taking liberties with users’ privacy. So far, so good.

Even if you missed that, there is no way you cannot pause at the nearly spartan, neat, user interface. As yet uncluttered in comparison to FB, and only four silos (Home, Photos, Profile, Circles) to click on. Yeah, no games, and thankfully, no Farmville! On the face of it, it is simple, and yet, it takes some initially to figure out the Google +. The ‘Stream’ is the equivalent of FB’s scroll newsfeed, and there are similar options – to share, edit, host photos and videos, and delete them.You can also ‘mute’ those annoying conversations on your Stream. Phew! There is also the ‘Sparks’ component, which according to Plus, “..looks for videos and articles that it thinks you’ll like, so that when you’re free there’s always something to watch, read and share.” Your grandpa will approve, it adds, but who is looking for Grandpa’s approval rating on social media?
What is utterly out of the box for social media is the ‘Circle’ concept. Literally, you can create ur own social spheres, including friends, accquaintances, colleagues and contacts in different circles that are more than faintly reminiscent of school level Set Theory. You can chose who you want to share specific information with, hiving off various groups that may be in conflict with each other: A boss versus someone to whom you are bitching about him.

A thumb tack aid you to transfer multiple persons on to the circles; and every circle you delete merrily jigs away out of the screen. Will subsets of intersecting Venn diagrams soon come to play, where diagramatic impressions mapping friends who belong to more than one circle? It certainly will jazz plus up. ‘Hangout’ is Google’s version of ‘teleportation’, a.k.a. ‘video chat’ and is certainly cool thus far.

Mobile Google Plus is adapted finely for Apple’s iOS, and is functional on the Android platform (tried on HTC phones) but does not deign to work on the Symbian platform (Tried on two of Nokia’s E-series). Snooty again? Because even as the migration to Android or iOS gathers steam, there are still millions of users on Symbian and everyone knows the link between Twitter’s phenomenal growth and the facility of mobile phones.

Even if you are in, there is the fact that Plus is about a week old. Though social media is turning out to be the natural hyperbole of human communication, it is frustrating that updates will have to be done separately, since Google currently offers no integration with FB and Twitter (though a patch is available only on Chrome). Google’s domination of your life is also upsetting if you think of it. Ergo, for now, Google Plus remains, at best, a tantalising and yet, brief dalliance outside of marriage.