Google, the world's powerhouse search engine, is launching its newest initiative to attempt to break into the social media industry once again. Although the company has already failed several times with Google Buzz, Orkut, and Google Wave, Google is introducing a social networking service called the Google+ project. The project looks conspicuously a lot like Facebook, but Google insists its added some tweeks that will hopefully prove this new initiative to be successful (Miller). .
The Google+ project that launched on June 28th is only available to a select group of Google users who will test the product and then invite others to join. Like Facebook, the social networking site allows people to share and discuss status updates, photos and links. The major difference is that the Google+ project is meant for sharing with groups, such as colleagues, roommates, or running buddies instead of all of one's friends or the entire Web. It allows users to segment friends into groups and offers group text messaging and video chat. Gundotra and Horowitz said they designed the product with real life relationships in mind and tried to eliminate awkward things like friend requests and oversharing (Miller).
"In real life, we have walls and windows and I can speak to you knowing who's in the room, but in the online world, you get to a .