Facebook will just (hopefully) copy the circles idea, so you can share a status update with a pre-saved group. I doubt Google was able to copyright that shit
Don't think so. You can share with certain friends but you can't save that list of friends for later. Or you can save it as the default but can't choose between one group and another group. That's why Google is making a big deal of it.
And whilst Google launch the Facebook competitor, Facebook will no doubt be ready to launch the Adsense competitor. No doubt that they'll be a full scale war within a few months.