Google+ Pages: My First Impressions

Earlier today Google made a big to-do about announcing that the ability to create Pages had launched. Then they took it back and said that the functionality was "coming soon" for everyone, and only available now to select few. Then later they announced, no, really, Pages are live for everyone. Talk about an annoying beginning.

But of course I had to try it to see what all the fuss was about--and you can too.

Here are my first impressions about Google+ Pages:

• I am totally underwhelmed. I still don't get the Circle concept for personal use; I get it even less from a company POV.
• It seems very redundant of Facebook. Shocker, I know, but seriously--what is it other than a Facebook page circa 3 years ago, albeit way more confusing? I say circa 3 years ago because that was back when you had to create a Facebook page via your personal account and pages were inextricably linked to personal profiles.
• Apparently there are some issues with pages being able to add people to Circles. I honestly do not get Circles so I can't weigh in on that either way--I just created the page to see how it worked; I'm not worrying about fans/followers/circles at this point.
• The only thing about Google+ pages that seems promising at this point is the hangout feature. I could see that being useful.
• For now the only way to create a custom url for your Google+ page is via gplus.tohttp://gplus.to/

That's all I've got for now; what do you think of Google+ page functionality? A game-changer or a yawner?