Google+: The next big social networking site?

Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, and then comes Google+. Is it the next social networking site to be in?

Late June of this year, Google made a soft run/ soft launch of Google+ wherein only selected users were invited to try out the site. From the looks of it, it's the leading search engine's answer to Facebook.

I fortunately got invited by a friend of mine who was invited to be part of the Google+ testing. Looking at it at face value, you'll see it's like Facebook during its infancy and growth stage.

My Google+ dashboard. Some names and photos were blurred for security purposes.

Very streamlined, without much going on. You'll see a timeline of posts from your Circle (more on that later), suggested friends, chat and Hangout options (more on that, too), and some others.

So what does Google+ have? As you explore your Home page (dashboard), you'll also find these:

Circles - basically your friends, acquaintances, family, colleagues, etc. This section allows you to group your friends in certain categories (you can actually put one friend in more than one Circle). It's Google+'s helpful tool for sharing what you post here. Since your friends are grouped in different Circles, you have total control of sharing and privacy. When you post a status in your dash, you can choose to make it public (visible to everyone even outside your Circle) or choose the Circles whom you want to share your post.

Hangouts - where you can not only chat with friends, but also share videos and other media with them, even while on webcam. Haven't tried it, though.

Sparks - a list of what interests you. On the Sparks page, just enter your interest and Google will list down a search of feeds related to it. And once you added an interest in Sparks, you'll automatically get related feeds.

What's interesting to know also about Google+ is that it seems to consolidate all other info related to your Google account: mail, photos, documents, calendar, Buzz, and soon enough blogs (on Blogger, most probably). I think Google is working on bringing all Google products together here and they'll all be accessible from just one's Google+ account.

So will Google+ be bigger than Facebook? As of now, Facebook seems to be ahead of the social networking game. But who knows? Google works fast and probably in a flash, or once it has games and entertainment apps on the site, Google+ might give Mark Zuckerberg a run for his money.

Blogger and Picasa to be renamed, not completely axed

The news from Huffington Post made me worry at first, because of its headline, but after reading the news and the Mashable article, I heaved a sigh of relief.

Just to be clear, Google is not removing or terminating Blogger and Picasa. Rather it's going to rename them into Google Blogs and Google Photos, respectively, to be in line with all the other Google products once Google+ will be open to the public.

Methinks that this effort means that Google plans that Blogger and Picasa (or what is soon to be the former Google Blogs and Google Photos) will be integrated into Google+, something similar to the pre-2011 Friendster wherein users can access blogs and photos from their page.

I just don't know if, by the time they get rebranded, blogs using the "blogspot.com" will retain their URLs or will be redirected to another.

Let's see where this will go. Mashable says that the rebranding may happen on or before July 31, when Google+ is officially launched, so we'll have to wait for a bit for any new announcement.