Google+ Moves Out Of Field Trial – Why You Should Care

Google+ just announced that they are moving out of field trial and into beta. So what’s that mean? In a word, it means that anyone can join without an invitation. Yep, even you.

This is big news for a number of reasons. First, Google+ is the fastest growing social network in history. It’s not the biggest, not yet. That honor still belongs to Facebook. But in less than 90 days, Google+ grew faster than Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace did in their first 90 days. And they hadn’t even left the field trial stage.

Even as several naysayers have proclaimed Google+ dead, the search engine’s social tool is entering the mainstream. Here’s what that means for you.

More privacy – Yes, better than Facebook (like that’s hard). Google’s Circle paradigm means you can share whatever you want with whomever you want, and exclude whomever you want quite easily. Just create a circle for the type of content you want to share and move on.
Easy localization – Create a circle of your local friends and share your favorite local content.
Awesome hangouts – Google+ has taken online video chat to a new level. I predict that Google Hangouts will lead to incredible new talk show formats for people in a variety of niches.
Search for anything – Another feature recently added to Google+ is search. That tells me that search engine optimization for Google+ is just around the corner. Don’t be surprised if your Google+ posts start gaining traction in the search engines.
Reputation management – The more you use Google+ the higher your Google profile moves up in the Google index. In fact, that’s true of all the social media websites. For business, that means building your reputation with a positive spin.
Enhance your mobile experience – Use an Android or a Blackberry? Instant photo and video upload.
Integration of other Google services – If you use Google Reader, Google Docs, Picasa, or any of the other Google services, they’ll all be integrated so you can use them seamlessly.
Google+ games – Google+ also has games. Not as many as Facebook, but it does have Sudoku, Angry Birds, and Zynga Poker. All total, there are 16 Google+ games you can play. I’m sure more will be on the way soon.
Google+ API – Google+ has released its API so development of more games and applications are sure to be on the way.

I like Google+ for one main reason. I can share what I want with the people I want to share it with. I’ve been looking for that feature on Facebook for a long time. Only after Google+ implemented its Circles feature did Facebook seem fit to add its Lists feature. A little too late, in my opinion.

Google+ will continue to grow. If I were you, I’d check it out now.