A friend invited me about 10 days ago into Google+, Google’s new “social” service. As many others have commented, it’s very well done for a “field trial” as Google calls it. The UI is very nice – with a couple of exceptions like endless comment streams – and Google+’s handling of photographs is beautifully done. You can get to my Google+ posts by clicking on the G+ icon over at the top of the right sidebar on this page.
Of course, Google+ is still new – and it’s attractive partially just for that reason. It’s sort of like the new restaurant in town. Still, I’m finding that Facebook is getting less of my attention as a result of Google+. How about you?
As for Twitter, I typically keep Twitter running – as a separate app – off on the right side of my display and always in view along with my browser. It’s a parallel feed – and I appreciate it’s “information density” with short posts, no integration of comments, etc.
Facebook, on the other hand, I run in a separate browser tab – a tab that I have to decide to click and go to – just like my email (ugh!). In the “attention economy”, seems to me that’s important – at least in the desktop environment.
On a mobile device, it’s clearly a different story. Each app is “all consuming”! We’ll see how the Google+ iPhone app affects our mobile usage – once that app is released.
Going forward, it’ll be very interesting to see where Google+ goes. Might it replace my separate blog here? Or…?