What exactly has Google+ stolen from Facebook?

July 01, 2011

What exactly has Google+ stolen from Facebook?

This is going to be a quickie. A vent of sorts to all that is bubbling within me.

What exactly has Google+ stolen from Facebook?

the concept of friends? And family? That too from Facebook? Really? Because Facebook never really understood the difference between the two, like ever. Google+ apparently does.
the concept of sharing? Right. I did that with food in my kinder-garden.
the concept of photos and tagging? *YAWN*

The more serious ones.

notifications? At first glance it's exactly like the Facebook thing. But a second glance, and whoa. There's the Google ingenuity staring at you in the face. What Facebook first brought into social networking - the notifications thingy ... it has remained the exact same thing to date. Excepting a few minor changes like clubbing multiple notifications into one, and positioning it from right to left, Facebook has never really improved on it. What Google has done is transform it into something so much more awesome. You can access it from any Google service, and can even do mini-Google+ ing in the small window that pops up. Also, Facebook had three irritating notifications for friend requests, messages and general notifications. Google+ has just one.
the 'like' as +1 ? Facebook's 'Like' evolved from a means to say "i approve of this status or photo" to simple sharing all across the web. You liked a page on the internet. That got shared on your Facebook feed. That is just simple sharing. Google Reader, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit ... had all been there, done that. And did Mark Zuckerberg really think that he would have a copyright over a simple English word like ... 'like' ?
tagging? Letting a person know that he's been mentioned somewhere? Wasn't it Facebook who stole the exact same thing from Twitter in the first place? Where was the hue and cry of "not original" then?

bonus : What exactly has Google+ stolen from Twitter?

I personally love Twitter. But yes, what is there to steal from it? The concept of followers? Hullo. Jesus Christ and the Buddha have had their followers. So have a thousand people before them. The concept of "following" is too old to actually be considered plagiarism from the 2000s. Nothing new there!

What has Google+ not stolen from Facebook?

This could go on for ages.

The epic Google chat : that's like a slap on the face of Facebook chat.
Circles == sheer awesomeness. Because every person whom you know is not necessarily your friend.
Hangouts. This is the sheeez. \m/
Missing Facebook events? Check the top bar -> Google Calender ftw!
Document sharing? Google Docs ftw!
Videos? YouTube ftw!

Isn't this like utter pwnage already? Wait there's more.