UPDATE: All the Google+ invitations have been sent. Look for more chances to score one soon.

Have you tried Google+ yet? After a few agonizing weeks, I finally received an invitation over the weekend.

Quick impressions: It’s relatively easy to figure out, the interface is clean and I really like being able to sequester friends, acquaintances and co-workers in their own circles.

Using G+ reminds me of the early days of Facebook before your parents and ex-girlfriends began using it. It’s uncluttered, there are no inane games like Farmville, and users actually appear to be having conversations.

The most appealing feature for me is the ability to easily divide my contacts into groups, or circles as Google calls them. Unlike my Facebook wall, which all but one of my friends can see, circles allow you to decide who gets to see your posts. I have my contacts divided among several circles — family, friends, acquaintances and professional contacts. I also have a circle devoted to Richmond social media folks, as well as one for social media leaders who I usually follow on Twitter.

To do the same on Facebook requires a lot of time and effort. For people like me, who have more than 500 friends on Facebook, it would probably take me at least an afternoon to assign permissions to all my friends. With G+, all I have to do is drag my contacts to the appropriate circle.

I also like that my G+ stream updates automatically. With Facebook, you have to keep refreshing your browser if you want to see what’s new.

While many early adopters are crowing that G+ heralds the beginning of the end for Facebook, I don’t believe the social network will become the next MySpace anytime soon. For example, I don’t see my mother-in-law, who still uses AOL, ditching Facebook for G+. She’s comfortable with Facebook’s format, and many of her friends are too.

So, like newspapers, Facebook will probably be around for several more years, but who knows in what form.

If you’re using G+,what do you think?

Don’t have an invitation yet? I will send them to the first five readers who e-mail me at bdevasher@timesdispatch.com.