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Online search giant
Google has launched a new social networking website in its latest
attempt to take on Facebook, which now claims more than 500m users.
Google+ allows individuals to share photos, messages and comments but
also integrates the company's maps and images into the service.
It also aims to help users easily organise contacts within groups.
But some analysts say Google has simply reproduced features of Facebook
while adding a video chat function.
Google, which handles roughly two out of every three internet searches
in the US, has taken several stabs at Facebook in recent years.
But its previous efforts ended in failure, with both Google Wave and
Google Buzz proving unpopular with users.
New functions
The company is now boasting that four features in Google+ could help
make the company a permanent player in social networking:
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* Circles - a functionality that allows individuals to place friends
into groups, allowing users to share different forms of content with
targeted clusters of friends
* Hangouts - live multi-user video conferencing that permits friends to
drop in and out of live group conversations
* Huddle - group instant messaging
* Sparks - a feature that connects individuals on the network to others
with common interests.
The current version of Google+ has only
been released to a small number of users, but the company has said it
soon hopes to make the social network available to the millions of
individuals that use its services each day.
"Online sharing needs a serious re-think, so it's time we got started,"
Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of engineering at Google, said in a
press release.
"Other social networking tools make selective sharing within small
groups difficult," she added, taking what appears to be a jab at
Facebook's recent grouping function.
But some analysts have said Google could have a difficult time
converting Facebook devotees to their new social network.
"People have their social circles on Facebook - asking them to create
another social circle is challenging," Debra Aho Williamson, principal
analyst with research firm eMarketer, told the Associated Press news
agency.
"The whole idea of a Google social network... they've been throwing
stuff against the wall for several years and so forth nothing has
stuck," she added.
In April, Google reached an out-of-court settlement with a US policy
group over its rollout of Google Buzz, a previous social effort.
The legal action claimed Google deceived users and violated its own
privacy policy by automatically enrolling all Gmail users in its Buzz
social network without seeking prior permission. |