Google+ Going Business and Pleasure (Games)

You may have to be a little patient, but you will be able to set up a business profile on Google+ within the next few months if Google sticks to its word. The company has been pulling the plug on prof...
Google+ Going Business and Pleasure (Games)
Written by Chris Crum
  • You may have to be a little patient, but you will be able to set up a business profile on Google+ within the next few months if Google sticks to its word. The company has been pulling the plug on profiles that have already been set up for businesses, apparently because it has different vision for how businesses are going to use the service. Google’s Christien Oestlien issued another update about Google+ business profiles via Google+:

    With so many qualified candidates expressing intense interest in business profiles, we’ve been thinking hard about how to handle this process. Your enthusiasm obligates us to do more to get businesses involved in Google+ in the right way, and we have to do it faster. As a result, we have refocused a few priorities and we expect to have an initial version of businesses profiles up and running for EVERYONE in the next few months. There may be a tiny handful business profiles that will remain in the meantime solely for the purpose of testing how businesses interact with consumers.

    In the meantime, we ask you not to create a business profile using regular profiles on Google+. The platform at the moment is not built for the business use case, and we want to help you build long-term relationships with your customers. Doing it right is worth the wait. We will continue to disable business profiles using regular profiles. We recommend you find a real person who is willing to represent your organization on Google+ using a real profile as him-or-herself.

    Getting businesses on Google+ will obviously be key for growth of the service, which has enormous business potential, given all of Google’s other products. The company has been actively discussing possible integrations with the user community.

    As expected, you can also expect games to become a significant part of the Google+ experience, which would make it a much more viable competitor to Facebook in the consumer space. Google acquired two social gaming companies last year with Slide and SocialDeck.

    Slide Games

    Tricia Duryee at All Things D, citing “multiple sources,” says Google is close to launching a game network, in which the company will take 30% of revenues. This will draw game developers, and the games will draw users.

    According to comScore, as reported by the WSJ, Google+ has pulled in 20 million unique visitors since launch.

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