Senators embarrassed by their children’s drunken party photos. Potential employers reading about your crazy nightlife. Girlfriends learning accidentally about their beaus’ proposal plans. All of it goes away with Circles. You share each item with only the people who deserve to know. And simultaneously, you spare the masses from seeing news of no interest to them; why should the whole world be in on your discussion of this Friday’s bowling outing?

You’re spared, too. You can click a Circle’s name to filter the scrolling blurbs. You can view only the work-related posts, only your college buddies’ posts, or only your grandparents’ posts, with one click apiece.

Facebook has something similar, called Lists. But compared with Circles, it’s buried and a lot more effort to use. In Google+, you have to specify who gets each post or each photo (although it remembers your last selections). That’s actually a little annoying — you can’t just type an update and hit Enter — but over all, the benefits outweigh the hassle.

Google+ has a few more attractions, though, besides this clever privacy control feature. There’s Sparks, which is like a personal press-clipping service (and akin to Google Alerts). You browse for, or type in, a topic you’re interested in, like “Electric Cars,” “Cleveland Cavaliers” or “Bundt Cakes.” Google+ fills the screen with matching articles, news and videos from all over the Web. It may be the easiest, least threatening news reader in history.

The most mind-blowing “Facebook can’t do this” feature, though, is Hangouts. Technically, it’s videoconferencing. It lets up to 10 people join a chat simultaneously, using their Web cams or laptop cameras.

A row of one-inch tiles, each displaying one participant’s video feed, appears below the big screen. Google+ does its best to switch cameras for the big screen automatically, based on whoever’s talking at the moment. (You can also click someone’s tile manually.) A skinny chat window appears on one side for typed remarks, and a YouTube button lets everyone watch YouTube videos simultaneously on the big screen. Slick.