Google is trying again with social networking with Google Plus. It actually looks pretty interesting; the group management (“cirlces”) looks reasonable, the platform-independent n-party text/voice/video chat (“hangouts”) looks spectacular, and the interest grouping (“sparks”) would make a good standalone feature. I’m going to wait and see before I deal with it, but the “Google already knows all there is to know about me” reality gives it a leg up on the competition, and if they rigged it together with standard technology (they way Google talk is a good Jabber/XMPP implementation with some extensions turned on) I might at least peer some of my “on the real god damn internet” identity into it like I do with Buzz.
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