Google+ “sharing” service launches to rival Facebook

Google has launched a new service, dubbed Google+, that lets users share content, videos and status updates, to take on Facebook.

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The new platform allows users to separate their friends into social “Circles” based on interests or relationships in order to make it easier to share and discover information.

Speaking at Marketing Week Live! in London today, Google’s managing director for the UK and Ireland, Matt Brittin (pictured), said Google+ is not “strictly” social networking, but rather a service for “sharing”.

He added: “Google+ is a project and we will see how people react.

“The internet is getting more social, all of us are publishing and blogging…and we’re trying to reflect that and give people things they value.”

Brittin said that like all of Google’s projects, Google+ could be pulled if it proves to be unpopular.

Google’s previous ventures into social media, Buzz and Wave, were criticised by users and analysts by not allowing users to easily import friends that were not also Google contacts, but Google+ allows users to integrate external e-mail addresses into their Circles.

Google+ also includes a video chat function, a service that is currently officially unavailable on rival social networks Facebook and Twitter. Android users will also be able to upload photos from their smartphones automatically to Google+.

Brittin, displaying a number of Google’s mobile and desktop products, said the next trend Google envisages is a new type of outdoor display advert that allows users to access content by tapping their smartphones on a “red dot”, which could eradicate the need for brands to use QR codes.

He said the mobile device is rapidly becoming “the bridge” between the world of data and servers and the physical world.

Brittin encouraged marketers to “leap and learn” and experiment in order to take advantage of the rapidly evolving mobile internet space.

Marketing Week interviewed Matt Brittin for an exclusive cover feature, which you can read here .

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