Circles looks really interesting, it's something Facebook has never managed to get right. And Larry Page changing his views on UI design demonstrates a willingness to really push out the boat on this one. They will have a tough time fighting the network effects of Facebook's social graph but I think it's time to put the meme about Google not understanding social to rest.
Circles is the killer feature of Google+ and will be one of my main reasons to at least give it a try. Finally i am able to organize my online identity the way i want it to be .
If people get the idea behind sharing and privacy, Google+ can and will be a Facebook "killer".
Plus i have more trust in Google than Facebook concerning my data.
I completely agree, their biggest problem will be getting people to switch over from Facebook, although I'm sure many of us were on other social networking sites before Facebook so it can definitely happen again. If circles manages to target the regions that Facebook hasn't then they will have a huge advantage.
Yup, it's the same guy who wrote In the Plex. He has crazy access to all sorts of people at Google -- much more raw source material gets through in his writing than the other journalists out there.
"We needed a code name that captured the fact that either there was
a great opportunity to sail to new horizons and new things, or that
we were going to drown by this wave," Gundotra said last August.
Or their approach boiled down to four bullet points which started with M, R, L and C, so someone decided to call it "Emerald Sea".
I mean, they even mention that the painting thing was a retcon in the article. But Vic's in front of Steven Levy, Google's official mythologizer, so he goes for it.
I'm guessing the four points behind the "MRLC" initials were mobile, recommendations, live and circles (or, equivalently, context). That does neatly categorize Google+ to date.
