Remember Google Buzz? It wasn’t very long ago that Google launched the “next big thing” in Social Media; and who would have doubted its viability, we’re talking about Google here! But the tool buzzed out before too long due mainly to privacy concerns, lack of useful capabilities, slow adoption, and heavy competition from Facebook and Twitter.

Well, Google is trying to break into SoMe again, this time with Google+, a new project aimed squarely at Facebook. Despite being delayed a number of times, Google started field testing Google+ this week. Sign up here to be included in the next wave of tester invitations.

Did Google learn their lesson from the last time? At first glance, the answer appears to be a qualified “yes.”

Google+ will be easy to access, soon available on the highly visible Google toolbar. The tool has a number of features designed to mimic the real-life social interactions of people with and within groups. “Circles” lets users select and organize contacts into groups for optimal sharing (after all you share different things with different groups), “Sparks” enables users to explore specific interests with friends, and “Hangouts” brings user location into the mix. Google+ also throws in photo and video sharing, and a “Stream” not unlike Facebook’s newsfeed, making it an “all you can eat” SoMe platform. Mashable offers a good initial write up of Google+ here.

Round One of this SoMe heavyweight title fight is about to begin. Who are you betting on?

Tags: facebook, google, social media, Twitter

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.