Google+ Project. A good cull?

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Someone Tweeted yesterday about Google+, so I followed the link and watched a couple of tutes.  My first impression on the Is-Does was that it’s an advanced like button.  Then I noted something called Google Circles, which was one of the tutorials grouped in the total offering labeled Google+ Project.  So Google Plus has grown into a project, which is kinda cool and offers leeway to do a number of things without completely committing.

I love the idea of Google Circles, with its drag-and-drop community grouping interface.  It seems a nice foil to the Facebook mass post approach.  But I was still in like button land and wasn’t quite sure how the circle platformed.  The app felt transformative and exciting, but then I had to go to work.

Today I’m reading that the Google+ Project might be a social network.  A Facebook killer? We all know how Google Buzz turned out as a social networking platform (over ambitious and over engineered). It was another example of the company’s culture of technological obesity. But this project seems like it might be on to something. The ballast for me is Circles. Luckily, I haven’t aged since high school, though a number of people with whom I treaded the halls have. Having friended them on Facebook, I would not know them to meet them so the need to cull does have its place.

That said, culling can be very high school and it’s not what the web is all about. Facebook Groups is a way to cull, but it doesn’t feel exclusionary. It’s a good feature.  I need to spend more time with Google Circles (the mobile portions are brilliant) before really weighing in.  My feeling is that there is something powerful here, but Google needs to remember why it exists as it moves the +Project forward.  Not to kill Microsoft. Not to kill Fotchbook.  To deliver the world’s information in one click. Exciting Peace!