Its position as the main gateway
to online information could be at
risk as people spend more time
on sites like Facebook and
Twitter.
To set its service apart from
Facebook, which has more than
500 million users, Google is
betting on what it says is a better
approach to privacy, a hot-button
issue that has burned Facebook,
as well as Google, in the past.
Central to Google Plus are so-
called "circles" of friends and
acquaintances. Users can
organize contacts into different
customized circles -- family
members, co-workers or college
friends, say -- and share photos,
videos or other information only
within those smaller groups.
"In the online world there's this
'share box' and you type into it
and you have no idea who is
going to get that, or where it's
going to land, or how it's going to
embarrass you six months from
now," said Google Vice President
of Product Management Bradley
Horowitz.
"For us, privacy isn't buried six
panels deep," he added. Facebook,
which has been criticized for
confusing privacy controls,
introduced a feature last year that
lets users create smaller groups of
friends. Google, without
mentioning Facebook by name,
said other social networking
services' attempts to create
groups were "bolt-on" efforts that
do not work as well.
Google Plus will be rolled out to a
limited number of users in what
the company is calling a field trial.
Only those invited to join will
initially be able to use the service.
Google did not say when it would
be more widely available.
"We learned a lot in Buzz, and one
of the things we learned is that
there's a real market opportunity
for a product that addresses
people's concerns around privacy
and how their information is
shared," said Horowitz.
The average U.S. visitor spent 375
minutes on Facebook in May,
compared with 231 minutes for
Google.
As with Facebook's service,
Google Plus has a central Web
page that displays an ever-
updating stream of the
comments, photos and links being
shared by friends and contacts.
Google Plus will also offer a
special video chat feature, in
which up to 10 people can jump
on a conference call. And Google
will automatically store photos
taken on cell phones on its
Internet servers, allowing a
Google Plus user to access the
photos from any computer and
share them.
When asked if he expected people
to switch from Facebook to
Google Plus, Google Senior Vice
President of Engineering Vic
Gundotra said people may decide
to use both.
Source: Economic Times
Thursday, June 30, 2011
**Google targets facebook with new social network servibe "Google+" :
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