I was finally able to get onto Google+ this morning. While I haven’t been able to spend a lot of time exploring yet, I do like what I see so far. The true factor on how useful it becomes is whether or not the masses jump on board, and not just those of us who get excited by shiny, new social media tools.

I do feel like the circles will be a nice feature. As a journalist friend of mine pointed out, the circles are basically a digital roledex of sources. As an SID, I have a personal rule against adding current student-athletes as friends on Facebook. However, it would be nice to be able to have them all in one, easily-reached circle that receives only tailored messages.

My mind’s been buzzing all morning with ideas on how we can best utilize G+ to communication messages from our department.  Being able to narrowly-tailor messages is very appealing. Circles divided as members of the media (you could even narrow it down more by writers who cover specific beats), season-ticket holders, alumni, current students, etc.

The question is, how feasible is it to sort an athletics department’s fans/followers? It will be fun to see how things develop.