First Day with Google+

Thanks to an invite from Mike Willis over at Mike's Mind, I am now able to use a "test version" of Google+, Google's incredibly recent project. In fact, the Google+ project is potentially Google's long-awaited answer to Facebook. Yes, we did speculate that it would be Buzz or +1, or any array of Google add on's, but the years the search engine giant has spent has all and all built up to this moment.


1. Layout is beautiful and redefines what we call "minimal"

The new Blogger layout features a sleek, monochrome design.

It's hard to tell whether or not Google+ was worth any wait, or worth receiving an invite, since obviously there has been a ton of hype across the Facebok and Twitter feeds about G+. Immediately upon using it, I found the layout to be incredibly slick and clean. I mean, yes these days, minimalism is the top style, and likely will remain stylish for a few more years, but G+ redefines what sleek and minimal truly is. To get any hint, you will need to see the new Blogger layout or for most of you, the new YouTube design. The focus is entirely monochrome. Blogger uses grey and orange. YouTube, as you could imagine uses charcoal grey with red.

That's exactly how to put Google+. Apart from blue links, selected text turns into a dark orange.

2. Circles are iffy

Google+ look at how 'Circles' are laid out and organized.

While most of G+ resembles the modern day Facebook scheme, the evident difference is Circles, which groups your contacts into whichever categories you desire. So for instance, if you have a group of friends from Boy Scouts, you make a circle with all your Scouting friends. What I'm mixed about is the fact that only you can see who is in each of your circles, whereas your G+ contacts cannot. Now, this may actually be beneficial, if you have some certain "friend" you truly dislike, you can simply add that contact into the "acquaintances" circle, and they will never know. Think of it as a Top Friends group no one else can see.

3. Google +1 is ahead of the Facebook Like button. 

Focusing back on to the sleek aspect is the +1 feed that is included in your G+ profile. As some may know, this is Google's answer to the Facebook "Like/Recommend" button or Twitter's "Tweet" button. In fact, Google has archived all my articles I have +1 in the past on to its own individual feed. Thus reducing congestion sometimes seen in a Facebook feed when articles you "recommend/like" saturate your feed and your friend's newsfeed.

It's only been 12 hours though, and these are just a handful of some impressions I have had with Google+