Google's new social network Google+ is going head-to-head with the biggest social network of them all, Facebook.
But for Google's new platform to succeed in gaining social marketshare, it has to also entice users by
letting them do new things, too, stuff they can't do in Facebook.
After the lackluster reception of Google Buzz and Wave, the Internet giant had to completely rethink its approach to online social interaction before announcing Google+. And it has. Google+, which is still in a trial phase and not yet open to all, steps back from the friend-accumulation game and instead considers how we, as social human creatures, already think about our friends. The outcome is cliques, or what Google is calling Circles. In real life, friends come in mini sub-groups, usually based on how we met.
Almost—but not all—of the new and exciting ideas that Google has germinating in Google+ come down to cliques, or friends grouping off into smaller subsets. That's a radical departure from Facebook, which does have some ability to put friends into different buckets, but not in a way that's central to the overall experience. From there, Google+'s innovation comes in the form of how these circles of friendsinteract: video, mobile group chats, sharing and discussing content only within a circle that has a shared interest, and so on. What has Google dreamed up that Facebook, after several years in the big leagues, hasn't? We found six big ideas that may very well rock the social networking boat.
