Google began testing their new product Google+ today. Only a small number of people were invited for testing… I wasn’t one of them

I did however take the interactive tour of Google+ and I’m pretty excited about some of the features it has to offer.

Google+ Circles:

Similar to Facebook friend groups you can add your friends to different “circles” so you don’t share stuff with your parents (or boss) that you don’t want them to know!

Just drag and drop!

Google+ Sparks:

Sparks sounds like the ultimate boredom killer (unless you have no interests). You add topics, categories or any other interests and Google+ sparks will find videos and articles it thinks you might like… Cool, but a bit stalker -ish.

Google+ Hangouts:

This is probably the coolest feature of Google+! It allows yo to have video conversations with your friends. You can limit it to particular friends or have an open “hangout” where anyone you know can join.

Each participant has a small video at the bottom and the person who is talking (or talking the loudest) has the main video at the top.

 

There are also some mobile specific features Google+ has.

Mobile Google+ Instant Upload:

Take a photo and it can be instantly uploaded to Google+ into a private photo folder, then you can put it into whatever folder you want later. This is convenient but a bit worrying if you take photos you don’t want to appear on the internet EVER!

Mobile Google+ Huddle:

This is very similar to Facebook chat however, it allows whole Google+ Circles to participate in the chat rather than just single participants. This sounds like a pretty good feature if it works well… I can never get Facebook chat to work on my phone

All in all I’m pretty excited about Google+ when I’m finally able to use it

What do you think? Were you one of the lucky few signed up to use it? Let us know in the comments!