Google just unveiled a large-scale social sharing project, called Google+. It's an extension of the existing Google Profiles and Buzz, with many new features that make sharing more useful. Google's plan to compete with Facebook is to bring "the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions" to the Web.
Here's a video that describes some of the features of Google+:
Google+ means "Google + You", so it's all about your friends, your photos and videos, your interests and your conversations. The service currently has five new features:
+Circles: Rather than just pile everyone you've ever met into a list of Friends or Followers, Google+ lets users arrange friend lists according to the acquaintanceship they have with the person. Just like you've been able to do for the last 15 years with various instant messaging clients, you can arrange your friends into appropriate circles.
+Sparks: Similar to the way you might "like" a brand or news story or celebrity on Facebook, you add "Spark" topics on Google+. The "like" button, however, doesn't really do anything beyond putting you in the crosshairs of advertisers. Adding a Spark ties you into all the conversations going on about the topics you like, and you get a feed of content that people are sharing related to them.
+Hangouts: This multi-user video chat system is based on the premise that people want to hang out and not be awkward, so rather than force someone to set up a chatroom by topic or by a list of users, Hangouts are video chatrooms that exist solely to casually hang out and meet people.
+Mobile: Google is taking the "cache or share everything" attitude of Microsoft's short-lived Kin service and adding always-on geotagging and instant cloud uploading and caching to content sent from your mobile device. It could be status updates, or it could be pictures and video, but the primary idea is that the phone is just the tool to getting stuff onto the social Web.
+Huddle: This is a realtime group messaging client based around small groups of fellow users. Google is billing it as an ideal solution for event coordination, where multiple people must communicate with each other at the same time without it being a public conversation.
The project is invite only as of now.
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