Google is expanding it's new social network by giving existing members a URL to publish as a way of inviting up to 150 new members each.

Anyone who wishes to join Google+ can use this URL to do so: http://bggo.eu/x

This move could potentially net Google a huge number of new users. Technology press has reported that 25 million users have now signed up. Perhaps an unlikely situation, but if 50% of them use 50% of their invites; membership would sour to over 950 million!

Following a receipt of an invitation to join Google+ yesterday, I've been playing with the new service and have formed an early impression: it's not half bad.

Although not fully rolled out yet, Google+ is creating a bit of a storm on all of the forums I'm a member of, not to mention on Twitter. At the moment, to sign-up you either have to be lucky enough for Google to just let you in, or receive an invite from someone who is already a member. With the invitation system being switched on-and-off seemingly at random, getting that invitation can be tricky.

Why Use It?

The system is a hybrid. It feels like a cross between Twitter and Facebook; in one sense it's quite open but in others it's closed. Like Twitter you can follow people of interest whether or not you know them, but like Facebook you can add friends and family and share more personal information with just them.

Google+ achieves this by it's use of Circles; a fancy name for grouping or categorising contacts. You can have as few or as many circles as you wish and a few are pre-established for ease of use e.g., Friends, Family, Acquaintances, Following. Whenever you add information to the system, you can choose which Circle (or Circles) to share that with. Great for keeping co-workers in the dark about what you get up to with friends! Should you want even greater control, you can nominate individuals with which to share data rather than an entire circle.

This rather simple idea is my favourite one. There's no worry about having any particular person following you - just add them to the appropriate Circle. No more social awkwardness when refusing a Friend request or worrying that because you've added your boss, maybe something will be seen that perhaps shouldn't be.

Further enhancing the privacy options in Google+ is a number of options available after posting an update. Clicking on a drop-down menu gives the expected options to delete or edit the update, but also provides the ability to disable commenting or to disable re-sharing. This means that those who can see your update cannot then share it amongst their Circles.

Of course, the usual options to share text updates, photographs, video etc. are all present and the system integrates with Google Chat. It seems most Facebook features are covered - except games, which for me is a good thing. Whether that'll last or not remains to be seen.

Google+ actually goes one better than basic chat. Another feature, known as Hangout, permits up to 10 contacts to communicate with each other in a group using voice or video. I haven't got a webcam or microphone so can't test this out, but it seems like a potentially useful addition.

What's Missing

After having a look around, there is a couple of things missing.

The first is search. Although I can post public updates which anybody can see (much like on Twitter), there's no way that I can see to search these public messages. Nor is there a public timeline. The public search is a very useful feature on Twitter. You could search for opinions on a news event, or television broadcast for example. I'd like to see this on Google+.

Somewhat related to search perhaps, there is no support for hashtags. Again, referring to Twitter, hashtags are useful for categorising an update. If I post something about cricket for example, I might use #Cricket in my update. I can then click on that to see all other posts with the same tag. Google+ doesn't support this.

Finally, integration with services like Twitter. It's unlikely that Google+ will stop me using alternative social networks. I'd like to be able to post something on one network and for that to be propagated out to others. At the moment, my updates are propagated as follows:
Post to Identi.ca > Identi.ca sends to Twitter > Twitter sends to Facebook.
It would be good to publish a public notice on Google+ that then automatically gets sent to other networks.

It's important to remember that Google+ is in trial and perhaps the above features will come in time. In all though, the service is good. It's not cluttered and offers significant advantages over Facebook and Twitter particularly in terms of privacy.

Facebook Killer?

So to answer the question posed in the title, I don't expect this to killoff Facebook - at least not immediately. Facebook is so well established that it will take time to erode at it's dominance. Google has the might to do it though and you can never take anything for granted - just look at what happened to MySpace.

Ultimately, I don't see any reason why the two can't co-exist. Competition is good and makes for better services overall.

The big question is which company is better in terms of privacy? Facebook has received a lot of negative press about the way it handles it's user's data. From personal experience it seems that Facebook is encouraging less privacy now than it used to. As Google+ stands, privacy seems to be very much in the user's control with easy controls limiting how far information is shared. For me, that gives Google the edge.