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Jun 28, 2011

Google Launches all Out Social Networking Assault With Google+

Social networking has long been Google's white whale. The company has done plenty of dabbling in the space, snatching up Orkut, which has failed to catch on in the US, and rolling out Buzz to the relative indifference of its massive user base. Announced today after seemingly endless leaks, Google+ represents a major push for the software giant. The service began showing itself to a smattering of users last night, as a black bar across the top of various of the company's properties. A "+You" button on the far left of the bar currently brings you to the service's landing page, offering a tour of the many features that fall under the Google+ umbrella.  

Among the sub-services is Circles, which lets users divide up which of their friends / followers can see which content, assuring that only your "Epic Bros" and not your boss sees what you were up to at last night's bachelor party. Hangouts, meanwhile, offers up multi-person video chat with members of your Circle. Sparks is a customized feed aggregator of content you curate from across the web -- remember when RSS feeds were a thing? This is kind of like that.

There's also, not surprisingly, a mobile element to the service. Huddle offers up group messaging, largely targeted at arranging real-world meetups for those times you actually want to, you know, socialize with humans in the flesh. The Instant Upload feature makes it easy to transfer photos to private albums in the cloud. Google+ is still in a limited trial mode and has a few "rough edges," according to the company.



15 comments:

prisoner art said...

I'll have to check it out - thanks for the head's-up !

Travie said...

Cool, I"ll check it out.

tamezisclutch said...

Nice post I think I might just check it out.

Shahan said...

I'm honestly not surprised =3

I'll take a look, maybe it'll be really popular

The Liquor Guy said...

I started to notice this about a day ago, certain search results would also have the +1 next to it.

Jack said...

I hope google doesn't take over the social networking market. I hate these monopolies. some day google will control all of us.

Terminally Ill said...

SIQ POST BRO!!!

Unknown said...

I wonder how quickly this system gets trolled...

Anonymous said...

i wondered what was up with the black bar above teh googlez

Zombie said...

hmmmm... not a bad idea!

Nokel said...

I was wondering what that horrible blackish looking bar was...

Potholderz said...

It was just a matter of time before google did this.

1 said...

Huh, surprised I haven't heard about this, thanks for the info, I'll follow you

Rich said...

This could be interesting

Unknown said...

A few people have told me it has potential, but still a few kinks they'll need to work out. Do you think it has the ability to take away the facebook monopoly?