Will Google+ Succeed?

I have no idea whether Google+ will be success. But I would say it seems as though Google has a shot at creating a social network experience that fixes a problem many people routinely encounter with Facebook, namely that it is indiscriminate. The whole idea of "Circles" is that real social networks come in "real" groups, not imaginary "communities." There's your family, your extended set of friends, your high school or college buddies, the circle of your business associates and then the various other groups you have in life. See Read more here.

Nobody seems to think Google+ will replace Facebook, and that's probably healthy and realistic. The issue is whether Google can tap something new, such as the fact that Facebook "friends" are a jumbled mess of all kinds of people from all kinds of natural groups, and increasingly also includes people you don't even know.

"Not all relationships are created equal," Google says. "The problem is that today’s online services turn friendship into fast food—wrapping everyone in “friend” paper—and sharing really suffers."  Read more here.

Among the obvious problems Google says Circles will fix include the fact that "we only want to connect with certain people at certain times, but online we hear from everyone all the time." Because every online conversation (with over 100 “friends”) is a public performance, so we often share less." And there is no ability to account for important nuances in real social relationships.