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It's damn smart of Google to launch their social product in the background

The tech blogs are all aBuzz (see what I did there?) about the first peek at Google's long-time-coming entry into the social field, Google Plus (or, as they awkwardly write it, "Google+").

Google is being smart here, and that's not a phrase I've used much in the last couple of years. They know that no one's going to abandon Facebook for something that's the more of the same except Google, so they seem to be just launching it almost in the background. That is, that they'll launch it, explain it, and then let people find the uses for it as it, rather than doing some massive product announcement/launch, which will lead to inevitable disappointment.

Now, whether this can be a useful tool is anyone's guess. Their slick line of "We believe online sharing is broken" is right, or at least close. Social media is in a constant battle to stay interesting, accessible and understandable. It's possible that Google's Circles, Hangouts and Sparks will be the next leap forward, but it's also just as likely (or even more likely) that they'll just be more confusing Buzz (see what I did there?) words that keep it from ever being adopted.

If there's one part of it I'm interested in, it's the Circles. As someone who keeps two separate identities to keep the professional/not-offensive parts of my online personality distinct from my random, swearing, politically-opinionated personality, I would love to see a better way of doing that than the clunky "groups" feature. I have hope, but Google's policy of being half-baked has dashed my hopes before.

One of the bigger "we'll see" tech announcements in a while...
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