Just joined Google Plus today. I was quite excited when I first joined, click every link I saw and went over just about every feature looking for what would make it stick out above all the rest.

I have said a lot lately that I’m getting sick of Facebook, I never liked MySpace, and I really wish there was something wonderful and great to take it’s place. I was hoping that Google Plus would be that “new” thing.

So far, I found that a lot of the features I do enjoy on Facebook are simply just mixtures of other Google features.

• They made the images to work with Picasa
• They require a full fledged video/audio chat window to appear for a simple chat
• It’s difficult to comment on others photos
• I don’t see a way to comment on someone else’s page?

Of course, an exact copy of Facebook would simply be another Facebook. However, I’d like to be able to login and know what is going on right away. It is a very simple system and looks very cool. I hope it takes off and everyone I know uses it. For now it’s just something I signed up for and played around with for a little bit. The invite structure is getting so full that anyone I would want to talk to on there can’t join yet. I guess it’s just a waiting game.

I also see some other issues with it. Because it’s merging with other Google products. Google Plus is making chat use gTalk to do simple chats, so during down time my clients etc will be able to see and chat with me openly. I think I saw a feature to only show people from a specific ”circle”; however, I’m not sure if it shows the rest of the people me as offline.

Being that it’s in beta means there is surely more to come. Google is constantly changing it’s other products for the better. I just fear that it might be a bit more confusing for those to grasp that don’t already use Google products.

Time will tell. I really hope it becomes something great!

Edit: See my other post about social networking!