Social Networking Showdown: 8 Facebook Features Google+ Doesn't Have (Yet)

Google's latest foray into social networking, called Google+, is being compared strongly to Facebook. But the two social networking platforms still have a number of differentiating features. We pointed outsix things that Google+ can do that Facebook can't, but it's just as interesting to highlight what Facebook does that Google+ doesn't—so far, that is.

"So far" because Google+ is still in a trial phase, so it's not yet officially live or open to all to join, which means Google could add more features and tweak existing ones between now and when it opens the doors .

Probably the biggest difference between Facebook and Google+ is that your friends are already signed up for Facebook. Everyone's already at that party. Additionally, people have a history with Facebook and have invested a lot of time into uploading and tagging photos, saving notes, playing games. The only way Google+ can contend with Facebook's history is by integrating tightly with other popular Google services, like Gmail, including Contacts and Chat, Docs, Calendar, and of course Google search.

Do you think Google+ will try to displace Facebook entirely? Or will it instead offer a very different type of social networking to cater to people who just aren't all that into Facebook? Will Google+ veer away from what Facebook has to offer or try to dish up the same things, only better?

1. Host games

Playing games, such as Words with Friends, Zynga's Farmville or the subversively funny Cow Clicker, is a signature feature in Facebook and accounts for a ton of activity on the site. Mum's the word on games in Google+ so far, although the search engine giant has been toying with social games on Internet TVs using mobile devices as controllers. Not including games as part of the core social networking experience on Google+ would be a surprising departure, although certain 

kinds of users would likely prefer that their friends' gaming activity took place elsewhere. Google+ could leave the question of how to handle games to the user, letting them cordon gaming activity and players into Circles (subsets of your friends) and Sparks (topics of interest that you can save to your account). As of now, however, Google+ hasn't mentioned games at all.

2. Update your status with Twitter

Those of us who tend several social networking gardens enjoy the ability to post on one platform and have it automatically repost to other sites as well. Facebook and Twitter synch pretty well, letting you auto-repost everything or just certain updates using codes (Twitter hashtags). Within the Google universe, you can synch between Buzz and Twitter, which will bring the post to your Google+ profile page, but you can't automatically route it to also appear in your post stream.

3. Use third-party apps.

When it comes down to it, games and syncing with Twitter are nothing more than a product of third-party apps that you can use within Facebook. And there are plenty of other apps. Facebook gives developers a kit that makes third-party apps possible—Google+, so far, does not. But developers are ravenous for one to appear. Forums are already buzzing with speculation about when an API for Google+ will become available. Some developers have gone so far as to guess the 

URL that Google will use to post news of the developers' kit if and when it becomes available. But for the time being, Google+ has nothing, while Facebook has more than half a million apps already in use.

4. Hide status updates from certain people, but see everyone else's

One criticism PCMag news director Peter Pachal had with Google+ is that creating Circles, or subsets of friends, is tedious. While I personally don't agree, I can see how Facebook's "everyone by default" approach is more appealing for others who might also hold this opinion. Facebook also has that lovely ability to hide status updates from any individual, letting you pretend to play nice with annoying long-lost friends from grade school while actually ignoring them entirely—without 

hurting their feelings. Hide people from your Facebook stream—they have no idea that you've done so. Deciding whose status updates you don't want to see in Google+ takes more management.

5. Birthday reminders

If your Facebook friends want you to know it's their birthday, they can make it available in their privacy settings. Facebook will automatically remind the right people when a birthday is near and when the day arrives. When it comes to maintaining happy friendships, that little birthday reminder has saved my hide plenty of times. We haven't seen this feature in Google+.

6. Invite everyone to an event

In my social network, people have definitely gravitated toward sending event invitations through Facebook. Facebook is especially good at spreading word of large-scale events because you can easily invite everyone you know. For Google+, it's another wait-and-see, although the possibility for leveraging Google Calendar for this kind of a feature is very 

intriguing.

7. Poll your friends

Facebook lets you ask your friends questions, both open-ended ones and multiple-choice questions in which you supply the choices. It may be an underused feature on Facebook, but it's there, built in, and very easy to use. Google+ doesn’t have a polling feature, although just as in Facebook, you can simply debate a question with your friends in a chat or with posts. Still, the Facebook poll can be a lot more fun.

8. Connect with your friends (because they're already there)

Everyone is already on Facebook, while Google+ has a very small starter group. As we at PCMag have been playing the Google+ "field trial," one stopping block for truly testing it is there aren't enough people signed up to get a good sense of how it will be used. It looks interesting right now, but how will it look when users have to manage 200, 300, 400 or more connections? And as a brand-spanking-new social network, the amount of content remains light. On the other hand, Facebook is jam-packed. Count it as either a curse or a blessing.