Well I have to weigh in. I have great hopes for google +. The interface is cleaner, the privacy controls are MUCH better and while there are things to work out (that’s why it is a Beta folks!) it is relatively fully formed from the get go. I understand why Google Wave and Google Buzz are mentioned each time, but if they weren’t trying and shelving things I think I’d be more bothered. Google + seems like it takes the best from those and is working them out now. And truly, google docs is one of the best things since sliced bread—so I know they can do amazing things at the Googleplex.
And Facebook. Well I have liked it and I still do somewhat. There is a great amount of interoperability—with twitter, with flickr. I like being able to connect several things and post to one and have it feed through all of them. What I don’t like? That I can’t keep my work separate from friends from acquaintances with more ease. You have to work at that too much. In Google+ you click on a circle and it’s there. The lists in FB just don’t work right somehow. Also there are too many games, and too many apps. That sounds a little grouchy and get off my lawn, but I’d like a way for all that crap to not clutter up my feed with more ease. Yes I can do it and I do each time a friend shows up with one or the other but it isn’t smoothly accomplished. I also don’t like the changes that FB just shoves down our throats and then we have to go reset privacy back to stricter. So far that hasn’t been an issue on Google+ but the day is still young.
I’m not sure there is a way to keep politics or religion off of either one. That is of course up to the people posting. I think though as I do the cutover to Google+ that I will include far fewer of the folks who hold opinions that make my blood boil. I’ve gotten more inclined to keep my opinions on those things off of FB and save them for my blog anyway.
I don’t know how it will play out. I hope it goes in Google +’s favor , just personally because as Myspace started to feel juvenile (ok it always did) and messy, FB is feeling claustrophobic and cluttered. There will always be a next new thing and I will likely always try it—it’s nice though when your friends are headed that direction as well—because the intertubes are a social space. I just don’t like a messy room.
