Googling with a Plus!

Google, in my opinion, can be termed as "innovation-in-renovation". Apparently, Google has never "invented" any utility on internet but has tranformed almost everything it touched on the web. Google is not Darwin's father monkey that is responsible for the evolution of mankind (read "webkind"). Search engines, e-mails, spreadsheets, web-hosting, e-books, blogging, social networking, browsing softwares, cellular operating systems and countless other territories already existed before Google probably even thought to invade them . Yet, Google's invasion has been anything but destructive. Google, though was not Darwin's father monkey, but it didn't act any thing less than fairy-gawd-mother either. Its magic wand transformed the rules of the game of any arena it flew through. Google, the search engine, 's story is a history now. The company's corporate name is now a world famous synonym for internet search. Revisiting another event; never had Microsoft or Yahoo shared nightmares of their users who had their mailbox's 1MB cookie-worth space overflown. Enters Gmail and a GB of webspace is thrown in the face. An email-user's wildest dream became the email-giants' craziest nighmare! Maintaining the legacy, Google's cellular baby Android has just had Symbian crawling on its knees. Finding blue oceans bore Google. It rather loves to enter a bloody red ocean and cleans it to blue with pure talent.

Just In; Google has recently added another weapon in its already deadly arsenal, the Plus, Google Plus! Even though Google owns a once-popular social networking (SN) site Orkut, it failed to develop it a lot more than a web of discussion forums. Facebook ate up its share, focusing more on networking literally and less on discussion obsession. Twitter came up with another idea and Orkut seemed to be kicked to wall. Previously experimenting with Google Wave and Buzz, Google has now rebranded its SN experience with the Plus. Now let me share my 2 weeks of experience with the +.

Not surprisingly and definitely not intentionally, Facebook played a vital role in making + go viral. It started with some people sharing on their statuses to have a + account and some of the rest asking them to send an invite. Working the same for me, I asked a friend for invitation and got it within 4 days of the Plus launch. Neverthless, the viral took probably even took Google by surprise and we had to wait for another 4-5 days till Plus becomes accessible to invites. With an interface that is more alien to Orkut and more common to Facebook, what I failed to find out earlier is the legacy of Google; to re-innovate the experience of any thing it offers like the thing has been re-born. Giving feeling of a genetic mutulation between Twitter and Facebook, and carrying the strong family name of Google, Plus is not something that will give you google-bumps at first. Profile, pictures, videos, friends, sharing etc almost everything is same as you find in any happy-go-LUCY social networking website. Yes, they have been branded differently though. An interesting thing is Circles, the re-branded friendslist. Its one solid + attraction. You can choose to be private like on FB while sharing your views with the world like Twitter. It actually gives you CHOICE to share what thing with what type of people you want. Another new addition is "Hangout" where you can arrange a webcam party with your circles, ah, friends I mean. Also you can update Facebook, Twitter etc through Plus if thats the only reason you open these things for. Likes have become +1 on Plus, seemingly. That was all I got so far and I hoped that's not what they have to offer so far!

But wait, I have been hearing Google Plus is planned to be the ultimate synchronization space for all of Google Services like Gmail, Blogger, Google Reader and etc etc. Well if that happens, and can surely happen, I think I can see where the networking world is going. If Google really plans to take the networking world to another dimension then we can expect one place to centralize all our digital lives. From office work to family stuff, from friends to love-stuff, everything at one space and yet seperated distinctively from each other. If this + project really lives up to its potential, then perhaps websites like Facebook need to do a lot more than changing Chat rules. But do they stand a chance? Google is much more than a family name for Plus I suppose.

And yes. Dont forget to "+1" this blog. Cya :)