How Google could make Google+ awesome and begin tearing down the giant walls around social networks:

1. Make the "stream" a simple RSS feed reader, and

2. Make all posts on G+ profiles, pages, and communities simple RSS feeds.

Make the "follow" button an add-to-feed button, and make "circles" into folders. These things are the basis of what RSS has been doing for however-long-RSS-has-been-around, and every social network has simply taken these things and confined them to their own network. Imagine how cool it would be if every social network did this - essentially becoming open blogging platforms and feed readers. You could just pick one to use, and follow any feed, whether it be from facebook, google+, or a website's self hosted RSS feed. Or I could not use any network, and host my own (rss-powered) blog, and use whichever feed reader I want to follow all my friends, any blogs, and any publication's RSS feeds.

Obviously this is far too idealistic for anything in the near-term, but it'd be cool if google started a trend in that direction. Unfortunately google's recent direction seems to be away from open protocols.