Are you gaga for Google+?

Google+ here, and Google+ there. Everyone is going gaga for Google+ !

For those of you living under a rock, Google+ sent out more invites to its private (but flashy) social network this week, prompting the Internet to explode. There were some surprising naysayers, including the Daily Dot’s own Owen Thomas (he mused over whether a product like Google+ was drawing people merely out of novelty), but overall, the Internet was pleased with the sneak peek it received.

To put a number on the Google+ frenzy, Google’s “The Google+ Project: A quick look” video has been viewed over 1.5 million times since being uploaded on June 26th.

Twitter, Facebook and even YouTube are still aflush with folks talking about Google+ days after the beta invites and video release, unusual for today’s fast paced 24 hour news cycle. And like all things popularly exclusive, most of the Internet is also full of folks begging for invites. Have you, dear reader, gotten an invite to the bigger and better Google+ beta?

Redditors have also fallen prey to the Google+ craze with Google+ based discussion threads dominating the front page. Redditors are too classy to beg for invites, and in the benevolent and gracious spirit of the site Redditors have gone ahead and set up multiple threads giving out Google+ invites.

So why would the web, from media outlets all the way to ordinary Internet users, act so crazy over Google+?

Alexis Tsotsis calls it a “social networking war“: and this isn’t a war pitting Google against Facebook alone, this is Google starting a brawl with everyone in the social networking universe.

But can Google win against even Facebook, when everyone and their mother knows about Facebook?

Yes. Hear me out, or rather, hear the Internet out.

While Facebook is still the most popular social networking site in the world, Facebook’s reign as king of social media has been waning for months, if not years. Plagued by privacy issues, “Facebook depression”  and now “Facebook fatigue”, Facebook is no longer cool any more.  Some would even argue Facebook stopped being cool when your parents created their own Facebook accounts. xkcd, a popular web comic, also hinted at the Internet’s mockery of Facebook in this Google+ comic.

If feedback from the general internet can be gauged, the answer is “Yes, Facebook’s demise is nigh”. Some choice comments taken from Google’s “The Google+ Project: A quick look” video illustrate Facebook’s impending death:

Way better than Facebook.
1. People on Facebook have WAY? too many “friends” that they really don’t even know. This allows you to see what people you actually care about are saying.
2. It has chat, video chat, and already an app. It lets you connect with your friends without the use of various apps like tinychat, etc.
3. No silly games or people “liking” pages. When I log on to Facebook and the first thing I see is “___ needs your help in Farmville” I feel like humanity is a waste.
Can’t wait.
BRBobbett

Zuckerburg disliked this.
theend1245

I wish there is a button called “Transfer from facebook”
mobizful

facebooks? gonna DIE!!!
Heliosvector

Somewhere. Mark Zuckerberg is being talked off the roof of a building.
someprickydood

Here’s some stocks and markets type old white guy named Larry Haverty saying on Bloomberg TV that this Google+ venture could increase Google’s stock by 25%.  Even Haverty thinks Google+ stands to be a game-changer.

Google+ isn’t banking on solely being a better Facebook, Google+ is trying to become the best social networking site possible by combining features from Facebook, Twitter and Skype. Besides the clear and visual categorization of people in your social network, one of the most discussed features of Google+  is the new multiple video chat feature.

Vlogger, reviewer and YouTube personality “Soldier Knows Best” got an invite to Google+ and shares his reaction in First Look: Google+ (Facebook Killer?)

Soldier Knows Best raves about Google’s new multichat feature, saying it’s “kind of like FaceTime on steroids”.  Soldier Knows Best closes his video stating he wasn’t sure if Google+ would “kill Facebook”, but after spending more time with Google+ he admits the social network has “a lot of similarities, a lot of things it does better, it’s more refined than FaceBook.”

Fellow YouTube personality Phil DeFranco mentions this same point in his video show titled S3X SL4VES LOVE ASHTON KUTCHER. (Don’t be afraid of the title, I am almost positive DeFranco uses the crazy spelling for the meta factor).

In DeFranco’s video, he says of Google+: “wow, organization-wise, amazing! The use of circles to categorize your friends… kind of like twitter lists but they actually are good and work and are awesome.”

The Internet hasn’t jumped on the Google+ bandwagon just because it appears better than Facebook – it’s because Google+ looks and feels better than any other social network out there right now.

Maybe the Internet doesn’t need novelty in so much as it needs intuitive efficiency.