AFTER SIX HOURS OF USE, Google Plus has secured a place as the foundation of an education social network on the campus of LIT-Clonmel, mainly because its privacy controls and small group management facilitate an easy way of getting team work underway.
Google+ is more about people than about content--although when using the G+ Android app, I think I'm streaking through targeted content faster than I can listen to on-message podcasts with Doggcatcher. Once you learn how Google Circles work, you have a very nice way of adding people to specific spaces and then sharing only into those spaces. The user interface is a drag-and-drop way of placing people into circles and it works well for me, since I don't want to move around 500 people at a time.
I don't know if people can see the circles I'm placing them into but I know you can see relationships between people, who they are following and discern a little about the kind of group they've been placed into by others in the G+ field project. I don't think I'd like knowing that I'm inside a circle called "Losers" so I appreciate Google keeping that knowledge inside the Plex.
I'm spending some time dragging names into Google Circles from places like my real world workgroups, my most-used Twitter lists and my LinkedIn groups. Sometimes these circles overlap, just like in the real world. Like Robert Scoble, I'd like to see a way to share circles but that would expose the names of circles that some people have been placed into and it might expose people in closely-held family circles, so I appreciate Google erring on the side of privacy.
I also appreciate the look and feel of Google+. It's breezy and open compared to the cluttered look and feel of Facebook.
Google Plus has an interface that's received serious thought. I can read and comment directly from the notification window without leaving where I am navigating.
Hangout is a great feature, especially with the ability to add people in the middle of a Huddle. It's lovely to see the main video picture change focus according to dominant person talking. This is an excellent tool for the workplace.
Google Plus lets me tag things, correct copy and enhance text. It suggests the developers know the auto-suggestions on mobile handsets might be wrong.
If you want to get into the Google Plus field experiment, leave the email address you prefer for the invitation as part of a blog comment you leave on this post and I'll invite you into Google+. If you're inside G+, why not connect with me there? After the first two days, only one in three people follow me back when I connect to them in Google Plus.
Photo by maher berro on Flickr.
