Google just unveiled its answer to Facebook with Google+ and we received our invite and decided to dive into the Android app. It’s an interesting approach to social networking but it’s too soon to tell if it will displace Facebook and Twitter.
We’re going to focus on the mobile space of Google+ because that’s what we’re into. But you must know that the service is similar to Facebook but also includes multi-person video chatting, searching by interest and a group-messaging app. The Google+ Android app gives you access to your stream, photos, Circles (groups of friends that you determine), your Google profile and the Huddle group-messaging app.
Posting to your stream with the Google+ Android app is a similar process to posting with Twitter or Facebook, as you can use the program to do a text status update or add photos with the camera. You can include your location with the post or not and you can filter what streams you see by your Circles or by location. In the video below, you’ll see that mine was pretty quiet because the service isn’t filled with many people yet.
The photos part could be really cool, as it will enable you to do automatic uploads from any Android 2.0 phone and above. This will be stored in an online account that can be merged with your Picasa albums and an iOS app version should be coming soon for all you iShutterbugs.
The Huddle portion of the Google+ Android app really interests me because it is a group-messaging service that is similar to GroupMe. It should work between platforms and it should also work via SMS.
Overall, the Google+ Android app looks and feels pretty slick but it doesn’t mean a thing without having people inside the service that I really want to connect with. It’s still very, very early, so it’s too soon to judge. I believe this has a lot of potential and I can’t wait to see when many of these elements are built into Android itself.
Check out the video below and let us know what you think.