Google+

Remember?
I think it was about two weeks ago. Remember? I told you how Google fired its CEO Eric Schmidt.
Remember?
And I wrote Schmidt got fired because he underestimated the negative impact Facebook’s popularity would have on Google Ad revenue.
Remember? and Remember?
I told you Google’s new CEO (who is also one of the company’s founders) Larry Page was going to shift the company more toward Social Networking, so it could try to recapture revenue it lost to Facebook.
Remember? Do you?
Sure you do.

Well, just yesterday Google announced it was going into the Social Networking business...for the second time. I say the second time, because Google’s first social networking site called Buzz was a failure (I liked it).

Google calls its new service, Google+.

Google+ is very, very much like Facebook...you can upload photos, send messages, makes comments, select friends etc.

But there is one major difference between Facebook and Google+...

The difference is in Friend Management...With Google+, users easily share information with a specific, close circle of friends. Friends the user thinks would be most interested in seeing a photo or read a message. This circle might be immediate family members or people with a common hobby or sports team. “Once users sign up, they have a profile page with security settings that let them share or hide personal information, such as education or job descriptions. Contacts are suggested based on user e-mail accounts. Google’s idea is to easily allow users to create “close” circles of friends with common interests for sharing”. (Bloomberg)

In the beginning Google+ will only be available to a limited number of users. In fact participation in Google+ is by invitation only.

The question is how does Google pry loyal users from Facebook. Users that are accustomed to the layout and mechanics of a familiar, immensely popular social networking site.

But one thing is for sure...Google needs to try something. Recently, for the first time ever Facebook surpassed google for the most number of hits per day.