Google Plus debuted last week. It happens to be the web giant's third attempt at capturing a piece of the social networking pie (Orkut, Buzz and Wave are all Google babies).

One of the better features is the option to create 'Circles' that lets you share different content with different sets of people based on the Circle you have added them to.

And then there's 'Hangout' that allows you to create a video chat room for up to 10 people.

Home Page

Once you sign up, you are greeted by an uncluttered main page that's almost characteristic of Google's minimalistic approach. Here, you can update status messages, make posts, share videos and photos with your friends - just like you can on Facebook.

What you can also do here, however, is share your location if you're using a phone running Android 2.1 or higher (reports indicate that similar functionality will soon be available for iPhones).

Besides, Plus-due to its seamless integration with other Google products-makes it easier to share videos from YouTube and photos from Picasa when compared to a Twitter or Facebook. So, instead of opening a separate window to find a YouTube video to post, you can search inside the same network.

Plus even borrows from Twitter's 'Follow' option where you can add practically anyone to your Circle (more on this later) to view their public posts on your own main page. The good thing (or bad), unlike the microblog, the posts are not limited to 140-character messages.

Now, if you like a post made by a friend, you can show your approval by clicking on the +1 button, right below that entry. This, of course, works exactly like Facebook's 'Like' button.

Profile Page

The Profile Page aggregates the history of your posts on Google Plus. Here, on the top panel-besides Posts, Photos, Videos and aggregated +1s-you can also access the About page where you can enter your personal information.

You are also given the option to post links to other networking accounts that you may have.

And yes, if you're active on Buzz, aka Google's version of Twitter, you can also access that feed from here.

Circles

Now, if there's one thing that differentiates Plus from Facebook, it's got to be Circles. The interface lets you drag and drop your 'friends' and 'followers' into various sub-groups . In effect, when you make posts available to your Friend's Circle, these will not be visible to contacts in your Office Circle. The site lets you create as many Circles as you want.

The Circles are also visible on your Main Page in the left-hand panel besides your main feeds. Here, if you select your Office Circle, for example, only those posts that are made by colleagues will be visible to you on the page. This is not to say that contacts can only be added to a single Circle. You could choose to include a person in as many groups as you deem fit.

Creating Circles is easy and takes a few minutes. Try selective sharing on Facebook, and you'll end up wasting more time because it isn't as upfront and easy as Google makes it for you.

Sparks

This feature, which can be found on the left panel of the main page, lets users find the latest content-news stories, blog posts, videos-pertaining to things that interest them.

Click on the link and you are taken to a page that prompts you to add your topics to Sparks. Using Google's engines, the page then aggregates all the content that matches with the term you added.

Huddles

This is a group texting feature, which is currently only available on Android phones.

Google is promoting it as a cost-effective way of chatting with a group of people in real-time, much like BlackBerry's messenger and Whatsapp.

Verdict

Plus is definitely worth trying. Once you've signed up, it's tough to say goodbye because Google draws you back with its newly-introduced black toolbar that squats across Google sites and posts a notification to alert you about the activity on Plus.