My first impressions upon joining G+ were good; finally a network that allowed a public forum but that wasn't as mindless, limited, or noisy as Twitter. This was Quora with more social and more sharing.
But alas, I started following some popular public figures and was quickly disenchanted as they posted content completely unrelated to what I'd known them for, and in some worse cases, content that was overly personal or involved bathroom humor.
Basically, the public side of G+ could be a great mashup between Google Reader and Facebook. I could log on, intuitively find people "blogging" (or rather posting publicly), and sign up to hear about their interest-related content. Users would be given the chance to create "Public Streams" that could each be interest-specific. I would be able to follow +Robert Scoble's tech stream, while not having to see all his photography-related posts. I could still have the ability to circle Robert, and hence would be subscribing myself to all his public streams. Note however that if Robert decides to only start sharing his content with private circles, I wouldn't be able to see the posts unless Robert had circled me. Imagine the pureness of content I could achieve in my interest circles! Here's a few mockups:
Current sharing: when choosing with whom to share a post, I select a circle, all my circles, or simply make it "Public" which lets it loose on the internet as well as spamming all my circles, who may or may not be interested in public posts I'm sharing. Posting something to public streams under the new system would not share it with my circles unless they had specifically followed those streams or had chosen to follow all of my public streams.
Under the new sharing system, as I post (or share things from around the web), I can choose to share the post with certain private circles, or one or more of my public streams. This transforms public sharing into the fastest, simplest blogging platform on the internet; and even more, users are ensured, depending on the sharing integrity of the blogger, that they will see only relevant content! Win-win!
My final step with this change would be to fully integrate blogspot (blogger) blogs into this system. I know, I know: bold, brash, and maybe a little crazy. But think about it: millions of mommy bloggers (of which there are not a few in my own extended family) being able to seamlessly switch over to G+ and even more, see increased engagement from their content. How would the integration work? First of all: as I logged in to G+ one day, it would pop up and ask me if I'd like to be able to post to my blog from G+. Once I clicked yes, it would ask if I wanted to allow G+ users to follow/circle my blog from G+. After clicking yes, the "Public Streams" box would show up on my profile for people to circle. As well, when I go to share content from the sharing box on G+, it would give me the option to post to my public stream/blog. I could also choose whether posts from G+ showed up on my blog on the blogging site. If yes, then visiting my blog's url would show you blog posts plus G+ posts shared to it. In blogger, I could choose to auto post to my G+ public stream, or keep it limited to my blog. I think the take would be vast and would completely nail the public side of G+.
Next, I'll be posting about how the big goog could nail the private side of G+. Stay tuned.