Features Google+ beats Facebook at (part 1)

I have been using Google+ from day one and I am very impressed with the way they handle many things, so I decided to write a post about each feature Google+ does better than Facebook. Part one is about Photos:

]Google+ beats Facebook at Pictures

Facebook handles billions of photos, it is arguably one fo the most compelling parts of logging in. You get to see what all the people you know are up to. From the mundane to the monumental it is an experience that helps people identify with what is happening in the world around them.

That being said, Facebook sucks at photos. Here is why:

• In stream photo handling, Facebook drops the ball by giving a tiny thumbnail which forces extra clicks and punishes those trying to use in slow data environments. Google+ makes them much bigger and with thte naked eye they look better too. Take a look at what I mean, this is the same pic posted on both:

  

See what I mean?

• Facebook fails to match the photo storage and sharing skills of Google+. With Picasa Google offers an unlimited (external) photo storage service with easy to use editing capabilities. It provides html code for embedding elsewhere and a whole host of other features. Google+ on mobile quickly and silently uploads every picture you take to picasa so when you next login you can decide which ones you want to share. This is likely to mean that you will both share more photos and also do it more easily. A huge win for the user and the network.
• Google+ destroys Facebook on Photo Display. Ok I have no clue why Facebook decided to go to the black display screen when it works so horribly. How many times have you seen one of the aforementioned tiny thumbnails and clicked on it so you could see what it was all about only to get a black screen with the caption at the bottom? It has happened to me hundreds of times and it has been an unmitigated disaster even prior to the advent of google+ doing it extremely well right out of the gate. With a modern interface for albums and a display that works google+ embarrasses the pants of of facebook. In the albums which look better on google+ when you hover over a photo it enlarges right there, no clicking to get a better look, such a nice little feature. Take a look at the album pages here, not the layout and the comment notifications in google+:

The differences are fairly clear to see.

• Google+ Photo Sharing Granularity trumps Facebook in ability and ease of use. With circles you can now carefully share what you like with exactly whom you like with ease. Much of what you can do with google+ you can do with Facebook, but how many sub menus of settings are you likely to go through to set up multiple sharing groups? With google+ doing so is as easy as drag and drop and group (circle) creation is as easy as possible. That means immediate adoption. In addition I personally feel like Facebook has changed default privacy settings so many times that you can’t be sure you will not get caught with your pants down so to speak. So sometimes I just skip posting the the stage dive with the bottle of Stoli O in my hand to Facebook so as to not turn off any of you. 🙂 On Google+ I could easily share that pic with those who were there that night, or my friends circle, while excluding my family circle, etc. So go ahead interact with whoever on Google+ and know that you can easily share or not with whoever.