Facebook or Google+ (or both or neither)

As of a week or so ago, I'm a "user" (if you want to call it that) of both Facebook and Google+. I don't know which is better or if you need either or both products, but I thought I'd mention a few of the biggest things I've seen thus far:

Facebook

Well, I guess the biggest thing is that everybody's already there, so don't assume that it's going away any time soon. Will users want to convert or add a second 'primary' social networking resource to their to-do list? There are also third-party apps that integrate with Facebook and that are used to post updates and interact with the Facebook environment. As mobile as everyone is today, this is a big deal and something that any competing product will need to implement soon. There are also games... I can't STAND the concept of logging into Facebook and seeing ads or requests from friends playing FarmVille or Mafia Wars, but I can't deny the fact that lots of people apparently do play these games and they aren't (as of yet) on the Google platform.

Google+

The biggest thing I've seen at first glance is that there's an effort to make sharing easier via drag-and-drop access to 'circles' that you create to group your contacts based on interest. If you don't want your quilting updates to interrupt your discussion of whether Aquaman felt like a fish out of water amongst the Super Friends, then you can create separate circles and update each of them individually. It's easy to manage right now, but it remains to be seen if this will remain the case when there are hundreds of people that need to be moved in and out of circles. The lack of games and clutter is an attraction to me but, as noted above, that may not be the case with other users and it may not stay this way forever.

Video chatting seems to be a big deal to both players. Google+ has its 'hangouts' feature for this and the recent Facebook/Skype announcement about video calling is a move in that direction. Personally, I haven't seen the need to use a social networking site to initiate video calls with others. I've been trained for years to believe that the whole concept of social networking is to create a ton of shallow connections with people that I may not be able to pick out of a lineup and have no interest in seeing in real-time video. :) The big players are developing it, though, so let's just assume there's a need.

Facebook lets you 'like' a product or 'become a fan'. The Google option has 'sparks' that allows you to pull different interests together in a way that suits you. The concepts are similar, I suppose, and I would guess that each will evolve as the user feedback grows.

It's a quickly-changing landscape and this post will be dated about as quickly as I click 'publish'. Facebook has taken some lumps over privacy concerns and their latest competition has had its own issues over what it does with search results and privacy concerns with products like Buzz.

Final edit: I can't even get 'publish' clicked before this take becomes dated. It's all about privacy per this article as well. **Sigh**

[Image: Library of Congress, 1865, Lincoln's 2nd inauguration. Old-school social networking.]