Hangout in Video Chat

Hangout lets you literally "hang out" on camera.

Skype's one-on-one video chat limitations just plain suck for big families who are split up across the continent. With Google+ Hangouts, up to ten people can video chat at a time. While bandwidth limitations could put a bit of a damper on the service (we had it happen while we were filming our segment for last week's Mac|Life Show), it's genius of Google to offer this much connection for free. My extended family in Romania thanks you.

Sparks: the Search Engine

These links are irrelevant!

Sparks is just another one of Google's attempts at integrating its search technology into a feature that the rest of the internet has already perfected. I'd say that my interests can be pretty niche, but I was really surprised at Sparks' inability to suggest stories that were relevant to my interests. When I searched for "Vinyasa Flow," a style of yoga that I practice, Google fetched results about an actress leaving her own Vinyasa Flow class. Then, when I searched for my favorite urban vinyl artist, Amanda Visell, Google returned with news about the Amanda Knox trial.

Hey, Google: I don't care about Kristen Stewart wanting to do yoga. And the Amanda Knox trial is definitely not an interest. Fortunately, these search queries can be hidden from your profile, so the embarrassing search results can be dealt with on your free time. And, if you actually stumble upon something that's relevant, you can "Share" it to add it to your Google+ profile and share it with your friends. The concept behind Sparks is to find you relevant news items and web links so that you can share your interests with your friends. It's a great idea, but it needs some fine tuning as the betas get betta'.

And What About Privacy?

You can control the privacy of everything on your Google+ profile.

Without a doubt, this is the biggest concern for anyone considering the switch over to Google+ -- that is, if you haven't already fled social networking because of Facebook's own highly publicized privacy issues. While you'll have to dig deep into the security preferences to make sure that only the right people see your stuff, Google is at least very obvious about it. The security preferences are easy to read and every option is straightforward about what you're hiding and revealing. Additionally, when you scroll through your own profile, Google will tell you straight up what is visible to whom (for instance, my photos are "Limited" to my "Friends" Circle). You can also select whether or not your profile appears publicly, and if you choose to privatize it there's also an option to actually see what your profile looks like to outsiders.

I should mention that since I signed up for the service, my inbox has been flooded with requests from people I've never heard of, not even from Twitter where I have an open profile. But it's totally fine, because all the important stuff is hidden from who I don't want to view it.

I could easily see this becoming the only social networking profile I care to share with people, if in fact it does take off. I like that there are obvious external links to other services you're a part of online, and that there are well-displayed tabs across the top that lead you to each section of a person's profile, so it could act as a "portal" to the rest of my life on the internet. Google, you did good. But it's going to take some time before I completely adopt this new service, because unless everyone else is using it I might as well stay where the rest of my friends are hanging out: on Twitter and Facebook.

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