Google+ News: Circles Will Kill Sparks

After a weekend of using Google+ almost exclusively as my social network of choice I've come to a conclusion. Sparks was DOA. Circles already does what Sparks does to a certain extent and it will only grow from there.

As it stands Google+ is a platform that has mostly been embraced by early adopters and techies. There are hundreds of tech writers who are populating their streams with articles, thoughts and musings. I follow a number of writers who I enjoy and have them all in a Circle called "Following." Eventually businesses will be able to create their own pages, so instead of just following someone like MG Siegler you could also follow techcrunch.com. So, this brings me to my point: When businesses and news outlets can have their own Google+ page, which you can follow in Circles, what is the point of Sparks? It could remain useful for just seeing random articles if you're really, truly bored, I suppose. The fact of the matter is that most people on the web already have a very good idea of the news they're looking for and the places that offer them the best reporting on what they like. When those outlets get their own streams and people can add them to Circles then Sparks will be dead. A natural and necessary evolution that can only happen with real world use. I was a bit surprised that Google Reader wasn't included in the initial release. It could have been used as a default Circle that auto-imported articles from my Reader feed. Oh well.

The one component of Google+ I have yet to try out is Hangout, the video chat tool. That's not to say people aren't using it though. In addition to Google's Vic Gundotra and Bradley Horowitz hosting Hangouts I have seen a number of tech bloggers doing chats as well as international photographer Trey Ratcliff doing a Hangout while he was on an airplane! Promising stuff.

The invite system for Google+ is still closed and a workaround which allowed me in seems to have been closed, so it looks like the general public will have to wait until Big G decides to open up the system to new users.

Google+ was released on June 28 to much fanfare. Only time will tell if the platform sticks and can take a real run at the social networking king. Ironically Mark Zuckerberg is the most popular person on Google+.