OK, so Google have made a ‘Facebook-killer’ as many times as we’ve welcomed in The Year Of Mobile, so feel free to bookmark this post to use against me at a later date. But I can’t help myself – the Google+ Project looks AMAZING and I challenge you not to get a little nerd-tingle when you check out the walk-through site.

It’s still in beta – you can sign up to be notified when it’s going live, but you can take a tour here and get an idea of what they’ve got planned.

Looks like they’re attacking Facebook in one of their weak spots – challenging the idea of a one-size-fits-all social network that cannot distinguish between your aunty, your colleague and your dominatrix. (Facebook have recognised this problem and implemented new Facebook Groups as one solution.) Google Circles looks like it will function as a mechanism to distinguish between your besties, your acquaintances and everyone in between, and this will dictate the kind of content and information you share with each.

Google Sparks looks like a way to assign interests to your profile – Google says this function is to facilitate discussion about things you are passionate about with your friends, and it looks like which interests are shared may be Circle-dependent… I can’t tell if Google Alerts functionality will be part of Sparks and Google will actually give you a feed of your interests but that would be awesome!! And it seems like this will be where the +1 button will come into its own and really replicate the Facebook Like button functionality as a method of recommending content to friends. Google+ may be the social network built around it that will make it meaningful.

Google Hangouts looks exactly like Skype and probably explains the “talks” the two companies have been having recently.

Google Instant looks like a function to immediately upload a photo to your Google profile a la Facebook, Blogger or MMS.

And Google Huddle appears to be something like IM but mayble with geolocation..? Google says it’s there to help you organise your friends to do something in real life.

Can’t wait to use it for myself!

BONUS: What do you love? Another Google revelation I stumbled upon last night. All Google searches clumped together on one Page. Genius!