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Taking On Facebook, Google Opens Up Google Plus
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 22 September 2011, 00:44 IST
Bangalore: Google today launched its social network site Google Plus for everyone, after a testing period of 12 weeks with a limited audience. Earlier, the service was available only through invitation. The online search giant will now allow anybody to sign up for Google Plus.
Google also made Plus's "Hangouts" feature which lets users video chat with multiple people at a time available on Smartphones with front-facing cameras. The feature currently works with phones running Google's Android system. Google said support for Apple devices is coming soon. The company had already made its search engine available within the social network allowing users to access results from internet.
Google Plus is seen as an attempt by online search leader to compete head-on with Facebook, the leading social network site. The competition between these two giants has apparently intensified with Facebook making its own announcements on the same day.
Facebook on its part said it was introducing a new 'ticker' on its user's home pages, providing real-time notifications of what friends are doing on the service. Facebook also revamped the service's main news feed to flag important items, such as a new baby announcement for Facebook users who have not logged on for a few days.
According to estimates, 25 million joined Google since its inception. Google's just born social network has been received with skepticism so far. With Facebook to go widely public in 2012, it will be interesting to see how the Google's network site grows to take on the bigger rival.
