Google+ – Review

Our rating:

By: Google

Version #: 1.0.1

Date Released: 2011-07-19

Developer:

Price: 0.00

User Rating:

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With the blazing success of Facebook, it seems like every company under the sun is trying to get a piece of the social networking pie. Google has made previous attempts, but never one as high profile as Google+. Naturally, on the same day the new service is launched, an iPhone app for it is launched as well.

Google+ has a service offers certain architectural advantages over Facebook. It’s possible to categorize friends (in sections called "circles") and only send messages or wall posts based on those categories. It’s a good concept and I wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook "borrowed" it in the next year.

The app itself is very intuitive and easy to use (not surprising since Google has very smart people working at the company). Interestingly, if you allow the app to know your location, it also allows you to look at public posts made by people that live nearby and lets you know of nearby merchants at which to eat or shop.

Google+ also allows a "huddle", which is a set of posts from multiple friends or colleagues that only they can see. In terms of privacy controls, Google seems to have their stuff together better than Facebook.

This being said, I don’t see this app as the Facebook killer. Facebook has become synonymous with social networking. At best, I see Facebook adapting some of these features. Google has an uphill climb in this battle. However, we get a pretty good app as a result.