Google+ and what it means to you

This week, Google continued it’s plan for world domination by announcing a new social media network currently called the Google+ project.  At first look, it would seem Google+ is another form of the not-so-successful Google buzz twitter-clone, however after reading the features it promises, it’s more like a direct competitor to many social media platforms including Facebook, Digg, and StumbleUpon.

It appears that Google+ will be integrated right into your gmail and personalize searches on Google.com. Here are some of the main features that are being touted by Google:

• Instant Upload – Presumably using the Android Platform (will iPhones get some love sooner than later?), people will be able to easily share photos and videos from their mobile device with their Google Places photo album. You can then share that uploaded media with anyone you’d like.

• Hangouts –  Hangouts seems to be a fancy way of organizing Google Chat (both text and Video). Essentially, a Hangout is a chat room involving specific people or ‘circles’. There’s nothing groundbreaking about this, but it could allow Businesses using Google Apps to organize online meetings in one place.

• Sparks – Sparks is Google’s equivalent of StumbleUpon and similar platforms. Add what you’re ‘interested in’ and Google will routinely update you with interesting things to watch, read, or share. This could open it up for “Spark Engine Optimization” based on how Google determines rankings.

• Circles – Circles appears to be an easy way of organizing your contacts. You can simply add any contact into a ‘circle’ and segment messages and things you share with each circle. Again, nothing ground breaking, but could help people split their pleasures with their business.

• Huddle – A simplified version of Group Chat. While it seems to be similar to ‘hangouts’, group chat simply allows you to send texts to everyone in a particular circle. There’s nothing really revolutionary about this, but it does simplify the process of contacting a bunch of people on a team via their mobile devices.

While Google+ is still in testing phases and as of today invites are not being given out due to very high demand, I’m sure there will be a lot more features announced in the coming months. However, just like many other Google projects that have failed in the past few years, only time will tell if Google+ will be a big player in the social media scene. We’ll keep you updated!