I managed to snag a Google+ account though an online acquaintance. (Score!) After playing with it for a while I am very encouraged by what I am seeing. It is most definitely in beta so little glitches can certainly be overlooked.
Google Plus clones the basic idea of Facebook (as Facebook did with Friendster/Myspace and the like) without stealing anything that could invoke lawsuits and totally integrated it with Google's other services like search, gmail, blogging, etc. Google has also added a video 'hangout' feature which I haven't been able to test completely since there aren't many folks on Google+ yet. I clicked on "Start a Hangout" and was brought to a popup window where I could "check my hair and make sure my mike works" which I did. I could also choose which "Circles" I was willing to 'Google Hang' with. Of course nobody was available since I only have one "friend" at the moment.
Circles are something that Facebook doesn't have that could give Google the edge. (I know similar functionality is possible in Facebook, but it isn't intuative and it isn't easy). Circles are groups of people. Just like in real life you have work friends, recreational friends, family, there may be things that you want to share with your drinking buddies that you may not want your bosss or your mother reading. Circles gives you an easy way to organize your people and who see's what.
Inversely you can filter out circles in your view. So if you aren't interested in reading about what your coworkers are doing you can turn off the coworkers circle. Simple right?
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