India Internet News

05 July 2011

You may have noticed mugshots of your Gmail friends pop up late and a black band on the Google search page. These are, actually, subtle signs that indicates Google is working on its own new social networking product to meet the search giant Facebook at last. Google+, released on Tuesday by the company, is expected to be more private, smarter, and also more common than other social networking sites. It could even be united with your mail, search and news functions. Google said it is legitimate and a much better way to be in touch. "With a smile, a laugh, a murmur or a cry, we connect with others every day," said Vic Gundotra, Google's senior vice president, engineering. Gundotra, a former Microsoft expert of Indian origin, took Google's efforts in social media, including Buzz. His Google+ profile says: "Fell in love with the power of software at age 11, and am still in love." The person behind the project emphasized on the delicacy of relationships broken by the rigidity of online tools, saying: "We aim to fix it." In his blog, Gundotra took many hits at Facebook "Today online services turn friendship into fast food packaging everybody in "friend" paper".

Google+ allows you to form exclusive circles of friends, such as family, colleagues, neighbors, and the insane. His "spark" option allows a conversation to leisure and amusement. "Hangouts" is for people to "stop to say hello," as you do "inside a pub or on a terrace." So you are not available to everyone forever. Google+ allows you to add your location to each post, upload pictures and group messages for a play or party - with a mobile version on the anvil. As in the early days of Gmail, very few people saw it. "They create a buzz around it to create the interest of users," said Aravind Anivar, an observer of social networking in Bangalore. Aravind said it comes after the Google network options such as Orkut and Buzz that do not go viral. "They are trying to add something new," said Asheesh Raina, principal research analyst at Gartner in Mumbai. "It is better to rebuild and resell them. Now they wish to replicate the success of Facebook."

Making money from friendships, Facebook has threatened a former company that does business out of the search. According to comScore Data Mine, in May, Google Sites has become the first property on the web to exceed one billion unique viewers, with an annual growth of eight percent. Microsoft sites came in second with 905 million, followed by Facebook with 713.6 million. Although Faacebook grew faster, the data in March showed a 43% growth over the past year. Observers such as Raina see Google making more money, including the mobile boom in India, with the piggyback of networking platform on the other products. It is of some concern. "Stop monitoring and targeting me," said Christian Wolff, a researcher based in Hyderabad, a little networking. "I'll tell you when I want to be found." Google top bosses said they learned their lesson. Buzz, recently, a sharing tool for users of Gmail, has drawn flak to automatically wrap up user e-mail identities on the network. Google has signed a settlement in March with the US Federal Trade Commission on charges of privacy practices misleading. This may explain a number of filters in Google+ than present in Facebook.