A New Adversary in Social Networking: Google+

Led by Vic Gundotra, Google’s Senior Vice President of Social Media, Google+ is the pinnacle of this year-long project. Google+, which has been delayed several times, debuted a limited field test on Tuesday.

This new social project will be ubiquitous with Google’s complete redesign of the navigation bar and search engine. The reinvented black strip located at the top of every Google page will replace the familiar gray navigation settings and come with several intriguing features such as viewing notifications and instant shareable content on Google+.

Although Google’s social project seems to be a valedictory to the all-famed Facebook, contradictory to the limited features presents a considerable predicament  between the two heads of online social communication.

“Google+ definitely seems like a cleaner, sleeker option, but it may take awhile until all my friends switch to this social networking site,” said Angela Zhou, a soon-to-be freshman at .

New options such as “Instant Overload” available on Google+ allow you to automatically upload your photos to a private photo album on your profile. A godsend compared to the hassle of individually customizing each picture with a title, privacy setting, cropping, location setting and tagging.

Yet with limited functionality and options compared with Facebook, would the general public buy into the fresh features available in Google+?

A Bay Area parent answered, “Just because it seems that Facebook has features not available on Google+, I think Google+ has newer options, and it seems more private and safe. MySpace and Facebook are becoming too insecure.” 

I am the one to admit the social headaches from the feeds received on my Facebook page and feeling lackadaisical about moderating the millions of privacy and network settings to get rid of certain notifications on Facebook.

Somewhere along these lines I become engrossed with privacy because those options were given to us. Because of these options, we were faced with a social norm of online etiquette. And because of this proper etiquette we were daunted with some awkward situations to protect our social status.

An example of a new function that seems to encompass this etiquette is “Hudle.” A definite upgrade to Facebook’s one-on-one chatting; you just pick six of your friends and start a private conversation.

Another interesting feature available on Google+ is “Sparks.” Much like StumbleUpon, “Sparks” allow you to type in a search bar your interests a likes. Google+ then searches for your selections and finds potential matches that conforms with your keywords. No more endless website stalking and consuming unneeded media.

According to my experience, I want to be able to keep in touch with close family relatives and friends without the constant changing of settings and layers of profile reading.

I want to build lasting relations with relatives that I rarely have communication with, instead of viewing people's lives through a kaleidoscope of pictures, events, updates and emotions. Google+ could restore the meaning of a friend, instead of those endless status updates from that person you don't know.

Would the general public opt out meaningless relationships for a more sustainable way of staying in touch with your friends? Is Google+ the answer to social dysfunction?

Visit plus.google.com for more information.