After more than a year of leaks and denials Google finally took the wraps off its big social network today.
It's big, it's ambitious, and it looks a lot like a lot of other things. If you can't make it through the lengthy blog post, here's an easy way to understand it:
- Circles = Facebook. Share content with your friends, only you don't have to share everything with everybody at once. You can pick and choose specific groups.
- Sparks = Google Reader. Subscribe to news and information sources and get a constantly updated feed.
- Hangouts = Tinychat. Live video conversations with multiple friends at once.
- Instant Uploads = Microsoft Kin (and iCloud, and...). Snap photos with your phone and they're automatically uploaded to an online storage spot on Google Plus.
- Huddle = GroupMe. Group chat.
None of these are bad ideas. But they're not groundbreaking either.
