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Ok I do love the circles idea, I am not fully there yet in terms of using google + but the interface and ease of use is pretty remarkable considering it is a very new concept. Have not tried the private messaging - but I have mostly been using the google chat that pops in seamlessly on my profile. I need to use more to be honest. privacy management I have not gone near and I know google have had issues here in the past with everything being public from the outset.

I think the circles concept (and related functionality) is the best part of G+. It allows you to easily share content with the people you need, which is always important when mixing work and social life on the same Facebook profile!

Unless I'm missing something, I'm not convinced by the private messaging method. I think it makes much more sense to message somebody through their profile, rather than via a shared story that's only shared with one person. Like I say, I could be missing something :)

I've been in it from the start.

The interface is far more logical than facebook and the whole system seems to work. When they integrate all their assets plus will be a force to be reckoned with.

However, people don't like change and won't necessarily switch over and start again. Facebook is well established, why move to another network when all your friends are on facebook??

I thought the same Robert, however right now of my 250 odd "friends" on facebook nope i dont have 200 friends in reality, about 150 are on google + so I wouldnt rule it out. Looking at other markets - nokia thought they had it all - now look at the iphone in a very short time frame. I would say depending on how they integrate all there might as you say robert and how it evolves it could have a chance of getting ahead - who knows :)

Here I am, on g+ since few weeks to. I hope google doesn't go to much after fb as to mee g+ is the perfect team/social collab tool out there. So i'm using it a bit so atm.

Any particular use case scenario you are using it that have been proved any good? would love to hear from you.

@james I think phones are a bit different as they don't upgrade themselves, you trade them in and get the latest one.

I think the biggest point here is that everyone is watching what happens between google+ and facebook. I think the biggest threat google+ poses is to twitter. The fact that you can follow rather than have to make friends is very twitteresque but with the option to do a lot more.

It's about time something else came along, facebook is becoming stale and people forget how unfriendly the interface is because they simply get used to it. I'm not a fan of monopolies but if google can do it right then all the best to them!

Circles is the best feature for sharing to only those you want and sadly, one of my test group rather share using google+ than use anahita for the ease of use. Once they received google+ account they asked me why anahita photo couldn't manage it the same way. You win some, you lose some.

@Robert :) I think you mean to say nokia never upgraded. But yes I see your point.

I would say if facebook take the attitude of - well we have the market and everyones friends are here then they will soon be over taken regardless of how big they think they are.

Forget my phone example - lets take myspace and facebook :) So I think facebook may have learned from this and moved on.

I agree its about time facebook moved on. If it ended tomorrow would anything really change!! - if google ended tomorrow would anything really change - yes quite a bit :)

No, I meant it in the way that facebook is an online app. They can edit and change it at will to add new functionallity. I guess the same is true with phones and software, but in reality, people get rid of phones every few years and get the latest and greatest but keep the same number.

Phones aside, I think facebook is scared. Within a week of google plus launching facebook planned an 'amazing' announcement which ended up to be the integration of skype. Quite poor really and still doesn't work properly.

Myspace is a good comparison. I still think something else is going to come along which will blow the whole 'social network' idea out of the water, but we will just have to wait.

Back to phones - This is a massive area which facebook has done very badly. The fact that google has android could also be a massive factor in it's success. The instant uploading of pictures and a useable mobile experience are a big plus for plus!

Right I'm off to the pub, my round!

Anyone have a google+ invite they'd be willing to provide, so I can chim in here with my thoughts...all I know is what I've seen from the outside. Thanks guys!

Hear hear

I think the privacy is extremely poorly solved

I think it is a joke of huge proportions when you get a message that you are in someone's circle - I am sure that X has me in a circle of fools/clients or whatever, while I have him in something completely different.

But the worst is that I have no sense of privacy because I have no feel how the circles overlap. Say I excluded my Mom form the circle where I have X, but X has her in the same circle where he has me. What happens then?

I frankly don't see the point. There is no mutuality or reciprocity or transparency - how something like that will ever build cohesion, purpose, focus, collaboration?

It may be good or even grand for a mass movement, or some other type of collective psychosis, but not people cool. My feel on G+ I must say is turning more South ;-)

i think its really nice.. combines the best of twitter and facebook..

http://donaldjenkins.net/2011/07/is-google-a-closed-platform-among-other-issues/

@Aleks, I haven't used G+ enough to see what happens in your specific usecase, but I'd think if I excluded my mom from circle A that has my wife, yet my wife has my Mom and me in circle B then this happens:

Me -> circle A: wife gets message, mom doesn't.

Wife -> circle B: both me and mom gets message.

@Rastin,

Regarding the concept of "circles" as a way of fragmenting/grouping Friends, and since Friends are the equivalent of "Mutual" in Anahita... would we be seeing the equivalent of "circles of mutuals" or "circles of followers"? (Circles of Leaders doesn't make sense as information doesn't flow "upwards" in that direction.)

I rather like G+. I think the Circles solve a lot of privacy issues that the simple public or privacy approach ever did. Not to mention, I can finally stop spamming my family about Star Trek info when I'm posting it for my friends to see.

@Jon whether private messaging happen from one of the receiver's profile or the sender's profile the underlying principal still works the same way which is story item shared only with a collection of people 2 or more.

@peter What did your test group specifically liked about the G+ photos? Please do share!

@Tito G+ doesn't seem to specify the mutuals. Looks like the Circles only manages the leaders and not your followers. You can make a circle of people who aren't following you at all.

@Rastin - yeah, functionality wise I think it makes a lot of sense to do it that way. It's the same as Anahita too, isn't it?

But I think from a UX point of view, it makes sense to allow contact directly through the recipients profile too.

@Rastin - the main thing that many people like about g+ along with photos is the way it can be shared. Select photo and then circle. Restricting sharing amongst different types of people which Anahita does not allow easily. I'm still trying to locate the post where I was asked to add the member as an admin and then removing it to "contain" those that can see which doesn't really work well for each member that want to share to certain people.

Example:

John wants to share bar photos with only his drinking buddies and not his parents. They said it's easily done with g+ so they stopped trying with anahita.

In response to mutuals, that's another problem. There are times where you have group photos (meet/made new friends) and each person gets the same photo. With g+, you drop them in the drinking buddy group and they get the photo without worrying about the new friends meeting the mutual status first. I guess it all depends on usage.

Hope my test group feedback helps in some way.

But I think from a UX point of view, it makes sense to allow contact directly through the recipients profile too.

@Jon I agree! Especially for a one to one private communication. I would in fact provide both as features.

@Peter thank you your feedback was indeed helpful.

Currently the best way to make a photo private to a collection of people is to invite them to a newly created private group. That also requires people to be able to create groups and not just the admin of the site.

I am still curious to see how the Google Circles will work out in the long run. I have about 300 people mutually connected with me on G+ and I am using the service on a daily basis to truly experience it and learn more about it.

I still think fine graned privacy is perhaps more of an issue on mega large social networks where it is very likely the place that mother, colleagues, relatives, and future employers all have accounts. On a distributed social web where every installation of a social network is dedicated to a market niche that is less likely to be an issue.

But again that is my current point of view. I am still observing and would like to see all the new ways that circles will be used by people.