Google+

[Ron]

Been out for a little over a year now, and has amassed 100 million active users (in comparison to Facebook's 1 billion active users), as well as 400 million total registered users. It was hyped as the 'Facebook killer' and Google's answer to the influx of social media sites in the past few years, as well as the "social layer" to Google's already enormous ecosystem of online properties.

Honestly, Google+ has so much potential, but it's NOT a Facebook killer. It started off as something innovative and full of new features that Facebook didn't have, but has since fallen off its horse and become a buggy, slow site without anything that distinguishes it from Facebook. One of my biggest issues with it is that all of its animations are choppy (which ends up becoming a major annoyance rather than a pretty little animation), it's very slow (especially when scrolling down), the layout of the site tries to be innovative, but ends up looking very unorganized and messy in comparison to Facebook, and the overall flow of G+ feels very empty and cold (whereas Facebook does not waste a pixel of screen real estate.

Overall Feel: Another thing I really don't like about Google+ is its inconsistency with fonts. It has text that is highlighted, the font is very basic and feels rushed and cheap, and other aspects of the site are very uninformative (such as the hover-over feature which is a ripoff of Facebook's hover-over feature). News Feed kicks the G+ Portal's ass in that the News Feed churns out much more informative sotires.

Messaging/Chat: Facebook recently revamped its chat and messaging system to something that is VERY smooth, beautiful, and intuitive. It includes tons of features that you really appreciate being there (such as "Press Enter to Send" as an option when you're in the full messaging window). G+, however, does not have a dedicated messaging system, and rather settles for the Google Plus Hangouts and the default Google Chat system (which is incredibly similar to the Facebook chat).

Games and Ads: One of the most popular aspects of the Facebook experience is its enormous library of apps, such as questionnaires, games, and online social worlds. One of the ways Facebook gets users to interact with these games is simple: ads. It blends the lines between user-posted content and then ads to the point where ads are hardly distinguishable as advertisements. Google+ has no ads, and you have to go to the Google+ app/store thingy to play games.

Overall, Google+ sucks and Facebook is the clear winner here.

[SpongeOddFan]

it like having Google ripping off FB

[box]

I don't use this, so I honestly dunno. It sounds like Facebook but with a Google brand slapped onto it.

[Wumbo]

Never used it, never want to.

[JCM]

it like having Google ripping off FB

I'm pretty sure that Facebook ripped off MySpace first.

Google+ has no ads

Is that supposed to be a bad thing?

I'm not trying to defend Plus, as I hate social networking in general, but I find these Facebook-Google-Twitter wars to be ridiculous. All of these sites have their strengths and weaknesses, and if you like one the most, you're free to use it. It doesn't give you the right to question the legitimacy of the others, however.

Also...

They're watching us.