Game on, Facebook.

Enter the newest (albeit considerably tardy) player into the arena of social networks – Google+.   My first reaction was one of unbridled excitement at the fact that Google had finally decided to wake up and fight it out. The war has been long and ugly, with no one likely to forget the “furtive and creepy” smear tactics employed by Facebook against Google anytime soon.

Even if Facebook has already achieved a considerable head start (750 million users, counting last), it’s important to remember that it replaced several other networks like MySpace, Orkut and Hi5. Cyberspace is constantly evolving and it’s too early to tell whether Google’s efforts signal the demise of Facebook. However, it does indeed ensure that the nature of communication does not stay static, instead morphing continuously.

After joining and exploring, here are some major features that stood out at the moment to me :

The introduction of ‘Circles’ : Simply enough, you can sort your contacts on the network into different groups and most importantly, actively constrain the information you publish/post to selected circles – essentially giving the user complete control over who sees what, something that Facebook has had considerable trouble with. You can still eavesdrop on conversations (if the people involved let you), though, not to worry. Importantly, your colleagues no longer need to know that you’re skipping drinks with them to go bandstand busking.

It’s already managed to create quite the ‘buzz’ in the media (couldn’t resist reminding you of the disaster that was Google Buzz) and a noteworthy trend is that journalists are writing about it by directly sourcing posts on it by prominent public profiles, such as those of Christian Oeslin , the ‘Ads Guy’ for Google+. He has said that

“Google believes how individuals communicate with one another is “different from how they communicate with brands, and we want to create an optimal experience for both”

- important information for those waiting to see the marketing potential it can offer. It’s changing how journalists are using social networks too, as Mashable reports.

However, as of now, positioning itself as people- focused, privacy conscious and friendly, Google+ has removed most business and company profiles from the network, only keeping a few for the ongoing testing phase.

Another interesting point- the fact that nearly everyone with Internet access has a Google account makes the threat more tangible. Why? Think about it.  Most of us use Gmail, YouTube, Google Docs, Google maps, Picasa, Google latitude, Google Reader etc. Some of us even have iGoogle as our homepage. When these separate entities get integrated into Google+, the need to use a separate networking site like Facebook becomes redundant. It’s the same analogy as with a smartphone – the integration provided on one single device makes it more convenient for users – who needs a separate camera, a laptop, a copy of the A-Z anymore if they own a smartphone?

Of course, the robust counter argument to this is that we don’t want a Googleopoly and herald an Orwellian future. Do we? Or will we succumb to it? And quite a lot of us have only just managed to figure out the features on Facebook. Can we really handle yet another networking site? Some wars are long and some are short. We’ll just have to wait and see how this one ends.