While Marc Zuckerberg proudly calls Google Plus “their own little Facebook”, Google Plus silently crawls up right to the top of the social networking market. Google Plus has tons of haters and a plenty of fans, it is not Facebook and moreover it is not Twitter, but its a result of social networking evolution that combines best features of Facebook and Twitter and has a few unique features that are still unsurpassed!

Actually, Google started its attempts in social networking with a project called Orcut (2004), which actually didn’t have much success. Then we had Google Wave and Google Buzz, which are now shut down. So what was different in Google Plus and what did Facebook have to learn or better to say “steal” from Google Plus? Let’s do a simple step by step research and you’ll judge yourself.

June 28, 2011- Google officially introduces Google Plus.

Earlier this year Google announced that soon there was going to be another player in social networking market and that would be Google Plus. This announcement was posted at Google’s official blog showing off great features of Google Plus. It generated a huge buzz due to its temporary exclusivity and reached a number of 20 million users in just 24 days, which is 48 times better than Facebook‘s result!

Among the key features of Google Plus, that were announced on June 28, 2011, are;

• circles- friend lists that allow to customize sharing with particular friends,
• sparks- news and data sorted by your interests,
• hangouts- multi-person video chat.

July 6, 2011- Facebook introduces Video Calling.

Just 8 days after the reveal of Google Plus project, Facebook officially introduces Video Calling feature added to Facebook Chat. “…we started working with Skype to bring video calling to Facebook. We built it right into chat, so all your conversations start from the same place” says Philip Su in Facebook official Blog.

Well, maybe this is a coincidence.

August 23, 2011-Facebook introduces improved sharing.

About two months after the launch of Google Plus, Facebook announces a new way of sharing photos, videos and other posts on Facebook alongside a bunch of other improvements. Now Facebook users can choose who can see their posts.

Nice. It’s just too much like Google Plus circles, isn’t it?

Maybe it’s another coincidence. Let’s not hurry with our judging.

September 13, 2011- Facebook introduces improved Friend Lists.

Facebook now makes it easier to customize with whom you share your data and whose news you get to know. Facebook creates Smart Lists segmenting your friends automatically into lists according to your relationships. You can also manage your friend lists by yourself or can abandon them at all.

Smells like Google Plus Circles…again!

September 14, 2011- Facebook introduces Subscribe button.

About 3 months after that intriguing post at Google’s official blog, Facebook generates a new feature; subscribe. Now you can subscribe to people you are not even  friends with and stay aware of their posts and shares, if only they “allow subscribers”.

Now, don’t tell me this is a coincidence, because it’s definitely not! Google Plus was the first to own these 4 features and Facebook just “tried to build their own little version of Google Plus”. Well, that’s not a shame, but competition, so we are not here to blame Facebook. We are here to observe and benefit from the both.