answer:If you don’t already live within the Google world, you probably aren’t missing anything. It’s not really a stand-alone product. It’s a reorganization of Google. Google had tons of products (gmail, search, Docs/Drive, Reader, Calendar, Maps/Local, Picasa/Photos, Youtube, News, etc). They want to be make all of these products “features” instead. Your Google+ profile is your google account and thing that ties it all together. Sure, they also needed the social data, but Facebook and Twitter were holding out because that’s how they make their money, so they decided to make the whole Googleverse “social” and tie it altogether with Google+. To be honest, it’s still a bit a of a tech geek fest in Google+, but I prefer it to Facebook – primarily because I am already a huge fan of and user of Google’s products features. Plus, the interface and security features (circles) work better for me. If you have to ask, I don’t think you’re missing anything.