FB vs Google Plus tech wars: Why Facebook should begin to worry

Google, the most popular Web site on earth, is worried about the secondmost popular site. That, of course, would be Facebook. Why else would Google keep trying, over and over again, to create a social network of the same type? Orkut, Jaiku, Wave, Buzz — Google has lobbed forth one fizzled flop after another. And now there's Google+. It's the latest Google "we wanna be Facebook" project.

The difference is, this one's got a real shot. Instead of throwing open its doors with a big splash, as it did with the hopelessly confusing Wave and the privacy-challenged Buzz, Google is letting Google+ seep into the world virally. You can't yet just go sign up; you have to be invited by someone who's already a member. Even so, Google+ already has millions of members. That's not quite 750 million (Facebook's current tally), but watch out for the network effect.

At first, Google+ looks like a shameless Facebook duplicate. There's a place for you to make Posts (your thoughts and news, like Facebook's Wall); there's a Stream (an endless scrolling page of your friends' posts, like Facebook's News Feed); and even a little +1 button (a clone of Facebook's Like button), which may be where Google+ gets its peculiar name. But there's one towering, brilliant difference:

Circles. On Google+, you put the people of your life's different social circles into — well, into Circles. That is, groups. Categories. Google starts you off with empty circles called Friends, Acquaintances, Family and Following (people you don't know, but want to follow, as you would on Twitter). It's a piece of cake to add new ones. They can be tiny circles ("Granny and Gramps") or big ones ("Family Tree"), organisation-based ("Fantasy League Buddies") or arbitrary ("Annoying People").

Creating them is a blast: an array of tiles represents your online acquaintances, which it assembles from Gmail and other accounts. You drag each into an on-screen circle, where they tumble into place. You can drag a person into more than one circle. The lucky encircled friend will know that you've added him or her to a circle, but not which one, thank heaven. From now on, every time you share something — a news item, a thought, a photo, a chat invitation —you can specify exactly which Circles receive it.

Source: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-07-18/news/29787308_1_google-circles-wave