Could Facebook be heading the way of poor old Bebo? With nearly 700m users we sincerely doubt it, but Google are going to try their best to ensure it.
The search engine giants have launched the Google+, which they hope will rival Facebook and Skype. The project had taken a year to develop and allows users to share photos and send messages through “circles” – meaning that only certain groups, such as workmates and family, will be able to see updates.
Google+ is the next step in social networking for Google after previous efforts such as Buzz and Orkut proved unsuccessful, though the new project is thought to be the most aggressive attempt yet.
“Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online,” wrote Vic Gundotra, senior vice-president, engineering of Google on the company’s corporate blog.
“Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools. In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.”
Surprisingly for such a high-profile venture, Google+ was launched without a press conference and instead emerged with little fanfare and a minimum of fuss.
The launch of Google+ is the latest step in the ongoing rivalry between Google and Facebook. The social networking giant was recently caught red-handed after hiring a PR firm to smear Google.
