Google+: First Impressions

Finally I got into Google+ and managed to play a little with its main feature - Circles. Here are my initial thoughts.

Limited Sharing Done Right

Circles are a Google attempt to solve the hard problem of targeted content sharing. From what I see it looks like Google nailed it. You add people to your circles (family, friends, coworkers, etc) then you share the news with one or more circles. It's as easy as that.

What Happens On the Other Side?

The people you share with receive your updates in the Incoming stream. When you are on the recipient side in Google+ Incoming is essentially your spam folder, which you might want to check occasionally for good stuff.

Once you add a person to a circle of yours their updates start appearing in your main stream as well as the stream for that particular circle.

Public Updates

You can share your updates with particular people, circles, groups of circles, "extended circles" defined as your circles and the circles of the people in your circles as well as with the whole world.

A public update appears on your profile, is visible to all the peeps who added you to their circles, and spams the Incoming stream of all the folks you decided to share with but who didn't put you in a circle of theirs.

You might want to make sure your public update is meaningful for an average Internet stranger whose random circle you ended up in.

Google+ For Business

The Google+ counterpart of Facebook fan pages will be available later this year. Till then we'll see a lot of unauthorized brand profiles and other ingenious use of personal Google+ profiles for business purposes. Be ready for more spam coming to your door.