Why Google+ Is Different From Facebook, According to Google

With the release of Google+, you possibly groaned, saying you didn't need another social network. Google entered a very saturated market, and given its likeness to the very dominant Facebook, people have questioned its place on the Web. Can it really fill any niche that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. haven't covered?

Google thinks so. The company designed the site with other social networks in mind, looking at what these other companies did wrong, explains Google+ designer Andy Hertzfeld to Fast Company's John Pavlus. He gives the following four reasons why Google+ differentiates itself, besting any other social site out there.

Circles are fun

A big issue Hertztfeld takes with other networks is that they're difficult to set up. Finding friends or adding followers takes too much effort, which really puts a damper on the social part of things. So, instead of making the set-up part all boring and stuff, Google created a fun way to add your friends: circles. Sure, to some, dragging a face into a "circle" might seem tedious, but Hertzfeld argues it is a "delightful experience that rewards people -- we wanted to make it feel addicting... Categorization can easily become tedious, and fun animations help add a twinkle in the eye, some whimsy to the process."

He likens the experience to a video game, "a highly visual and physical process: you drag photos of people you know onto large, friendly-looking blue rings, which offer up springy, slot-machine-like animations when you let the mouse button go. (A tiny "+1" even pops out of the Circle and hovers in midair above it like a 1-UP in Super Mario Bros.)"

Read the full story at The Atlantic Wire.