I have never lost faith in Google Social, and was always looking forward to Circles or whatever it would be called. At one point, there were rumours it would be called Google Me!
But I thought it would be very buggy, as most beta models are, and I have not found one bug yet in 2 days on the site. Best of all, my screen doesnt jump anymore when I type! I love the layout, and its slightly overwhelming when you first enter. Last time I was that excited was when I was kid in the candy store with money to spend when I was 6! :P. The videos from the demo tour were helpful though. Linda Lawrey and others who made it on the first wave were very helpful to the newbies. I set up my circles first, and did invites, then did my first post. The @reply system is amazing and no need for Chrome extensions. Whether someone is in your contact list or not, if they are on Plus, they show up. Makes it incredibly easy to communicate!
Hangouts-7/10
I have tried this twice with Asian timezone and American timezone. It worked amazingly well between me and the American , audio quality good, video quality great, and neither one of us dropped from the call. the quality was not as great when testing with Malaysians, but could have been bandwidth or internet connection problems there. Skype doesnt have free video chat for 10 people, only one on one, so this is a much superior product even 3 days in, I have so much faith in it, I uninstalled Skype!
Sparks 8/10
I have only had time to add one interest so far, and that's movies, of course! But the selection of the articles provided for me to peruse blew my mind! Hate to say it, but I think it will replace Reader some day !
Circles 9/10
What I like best about this is that you can create circles for only people with the same interest. This ensures no trolls are lurking and spoiling the fun with snark. My first pop culture circle is True Blood, and we will have a discussion every Monday! Let me know if you are a fan of the show as well. Jonathan Jensen has started a Big Brother circle as well, so let him know if you wish to join.
What are your thoughts about Google +?
I haven't had a chance to try Hangouts. Maybe the hubby and I will test it out later. LOL!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE G+! It's taking me away from FB (good thing) and GBuzz (makes me a little sad though). It'll be great when it's open to everyone else. I want to recruit people! ;)
Nice job Steph. Enjoying it very much as well.
ReplyDeletei have never wanted to dress up my dogs before seeing this. this is really too damned cute to be allowed continued existence
ReplyDeletekill it now with fire
I really like it alot.
ReplyDeletethe pace is better and more, i guess adult than facebook. Some of the buzz streams I followed were also starting to venture into that realm, but with the way you can lock things down + is looking pretty nice. I will need to sit down and see all of the fun I can truly with it tonight by integrating it into online gaming and such.