Can The Google+ Social Network Project Take On Facebook?

Google has just unveiled its new social networking effort, the Google+ Project, in an attempt to directly challenge rival Facebook. Their main point of difference will be their focus on providing more real-life aspects of sharing and interactions to social networking. Currently, you can only join this new social network by receiving an invitation from an existing member but its expected to get a wide release on the 31st of July.

Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice-President of Engineering was clearly drawing on the flaws of their rival social network Facebook when he explained that the “subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools..in this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.” So what does he mean by “real-world interactions”? Gundotra is referring to the way we connect with others, everything from a laugh to a whisper,  and the inability of existing social networks to convey this from one member to another.

So what will they do differently?

Google’s explains, “We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests. And so begins the Google+ project”.

+Circles:

Most people like to keep different aspects of their lives separate. What we share with our family members will usually be different to what we share with colleagues (or your boss for that matter). So now you can define which circle everyone belongs to and share content relevant to that particular group of contacts.

+Sparks

Receive content from around the internet on any topic so you can easily share this with the circles you choose.

+Hangouts

Connect with friends via live multi-user video or text chats with up to 10 friends. It’s a lot more casual than most instant messaging services since you can drop into a hangout or drop out depending on whether you make yourself available to a people in a specific circle.

On a side note: Facebook are now rolling our video calling to be powered by Skype in response to Google Hangouts.

+Mobile

It will be much more integrated with mobiles than ever before. For example, it will add photos you have just taken to the Google cloud in a matter of seconds and you will be able to send messages to all the contacts in a circle in one go from the app.

Check out the video below for more information.

Will it live up to the hype?

The Google+ project has been gaining favorable reactions from industry experts, but whether they offer enough incentive to users to become a direct threat to Facebook is questionable.

“It has some interesting twists on the social networking model but is far from a Facebook-killer..if you’re already happy using Facebook, you may have no more incentive to use Google’s new social network than someone already happy using Google has to switch over to Bing,” Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land explains.

And he makes an interesting point. There are some great features in Google+ but the main barrier will be convincing people to convert to Google after already establishing a presence on Facebook. It’s hard to imagine people will so easily abandon all the contacts they’ve built up on Facebook, all the status updates posted, photos uploaded, and particularly the apps that are key drivers for Facebook membership (I’d like to see Google try and pry people away from Farmville).

So do you think the Google+ Project can really live up to the hype?

**Edit: In an interesting twist, Social Statistics (a tracking service for Google+ users) has revealed that Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg is now the most followed user on Google +, with almost twice as many followers than Google CEO Larry Page. This really just goes to show how popular Facebook and its founder are. Well played Zuckerberg, well played.