I just want everything in one place. I already use Google for nearly everything else: mail, calendar, news reader, phone, instant messaging, music, documents, etc. So I see that black menu bar at the top of my browser (Chrome, natch) all the time. It is really easy to check messages and notifications in Google+.

There are still a lot of ties to Facebook, though. So what I am considering is using Google+ as a space for connecting with my friends and channel everything else into Facebook and Twitter. Facebook can become a news feed for anything I’m interested in outside of my circle of friends. And since there is a handy Facebook plugin for Google+, there is no need to actually go to the Facebook site to see it.

At the end of the day, I don’t care about the Facebook or Google brand. I care about the data feed. I am interested in the curated Internet where the import and export of data is managed with as much granularity as I desire. I am interested in certain topics from certain sources and filtering out everything else.

For it to work, people have to actually *use* Google+. This may mean adopting new practices analogous to what is on Facebook. Events can be replaced with Google Calendar. +1-ing something will become easier when there are browser plugins for it along with Google Reader integration.

For something that is so new, Google+ is already pretty great. It will only get better as it gets more closely integrated with other Google services. I want social media to get to a place where it is effortless and ubiquitous. It just works without having to enter some partitioned mind space where we have to think “Okay, I am doing social media things now.”