They say the third time's the charm, but usually web projects don't take quite so many tries. Maybe the old adage will hold true for Google, who's just entered the beta stages of their roughly third attempt at going social. Google Plus is now open as an invite-only social network that seeks to combine elements from the variety of ways we use the web.

At first glance, Plus isn't terribly distinct from Facebook. The layout feels awfully familiar, what with a "share" field up top and a thumbnail of your profile picture in the top left. The main page allows you to read a stream of content shared by your "friends". Functionally, however, Plus differentiates itself significantly from Facebook. Like Twitter and Tumblr, user connections are asymmetrical. That is to say, it models itself after the "follow" function rather than the "friend" function. You can add people to your circles and they don't have to add you back. And anyone can add you, much like anyone (read: random local businesses) can follow you on Twitter until you block them. 

Google Plus allows you to sort people you follow into circles. It starts out with friends, family, acquaintances, and "following", a category meant for people you've never met whom you find interesting. It works a little like a more elegant version of Facebook's friend groups, which allow you to filter who sees what content. Facebook doesn't seem to fond of filtered content, and so the groups have always been difficult to create and manage, hidden deep within user account settings. Conversely, Plus's circles are a central part of the network's usability. It encourages organization of connections with the understanding that some guy you met at a conference two years ago isn't exactly on the same level of friendship as the people you've known since high school. Every time you share content, you're given the option of selecting which circles get to see it.

The question, of course, is whether or not Google Plus is going to "stick". So far a number of tech celebrities have signed up, including Mark Zuckerberg and Tom of MySpace. Being a closed, invite-only network, Plus has created a bit of a buzz on other social sites like Facebook as people request and share invites. It has that hot, exclusive quality that Facebook lost as soon as everybody and their mother (literally) had one. The design is clean compared to Facebook's, with some nifty little animations for different features. It runs smoothly, with intuitive actions. It seems to me like the result of crossbreeding between Facebook, which is personality-driven, and Tumblr, which is content-driven. You put your real name and picture into it, but the focus seems to be more on sharing things you find interesting than sharing the news about that Coke Zero you bought. I don't know if it'll stick, but it's already fun to use and will likely gather plenty of users so long as invites are necessary to get in. It's certainly the most entertaining social widget Google's come up with yet. With Facebook currently lagging in buzz factor, Plus might be the first viable contender.