The world’s top search engine has made its entrance into the social networking market with its newest offering, Google+. The service, launched this week, comes after Larry Page, CEO of Google since April, promised to make social networking a priority for the company. Clearly, the company’s top management has realized that without a good foothold in this market, the business is really not geared up for long term success. More and more internet users are gravitating towards their social networking groups to find information, get advice and share views – a trend that has been watched keenly by internet marketing companies. It is now becoming very evident that these will be the resources that people will increasingly use when they need online information.
What’s on Offer?
Google has clearly decided to stick to a tried and tested formula with its design for Google+. The new social networking service bears a remarkable resemblance to the 700 million user strong Facebook service. But there are few special features that Google is hoping to use as the trump card to lure followers to its own social community. One of these is that Google+ users will be able to segregate their contacts/ friends into specific groups in line with their preferences. This has always been a serious issue for Facebook users. Many complaints about the confusing privacy controls have also marred an otherwise successful run for this immensely popular social networking service. Facebook did introduce a feature to allow the creation of smaller groups but somehow users have not found this a very effective solution yet.
A Limited Edition of Google+
To begin with, Google+ will be offered to a limited number of users who will be invited into the community. As of now, there has been no formal announcement about when the public at large will be able to join up. The trial launch will not have advertisements but this will not be a sustainable business model once Google+ goes large scale.