Google’s Path to Google+ Took 7 Years

Launching years later on Facebook and Twitter, IT's easy to take Google as simply playing trip up sprouted in the social networking game with the spill of its Google+ "field test." But look back in time and it's clear that Google has been playing in the social group world for years, but never quite put together all the pieces together in one place. Hera's a chronological take the oblong path Google has taken to form what could be the next big societal network, if the company can pull off the mega-takeover of persuasive well-nig of the incomplete a billion Facebook users it has a better service.

2004 – Orkut: Google had a sociable meshing in place long before your Mom connected Facebook. Orkut was quietly launched more than seven years ago to contend with Friendster, and it's stayed soft in the Unsegmented States and most of the world, but has become the dominant social network in a few countries, most notably Federative Republic of Brazil. Hilariously, it's placid in genus Beta.

2006 – Gchat in Gmail: It seems like a pretty minor affair now, but integrating GChat into Gmail was one of the first steps Google took towards fashioning one of its marrow products more social.

2007 – OpenSocial: Preferably than reinvent the interpersonal bicycle, Google prototypical tried to co-opt existing social networks similar MySpace, LinkedIn, and Friendster via an exposed-source platform, only the initiative proved disappointing, at the start working only with Orkut. It quickly faded away as Facebook's authorisation grew.

2008 – FriendConnect: Google's next ethnical scheme was a widget-based near that allowed webmasters to add a "dash of ethnical" to their sites. The number of sites using FriendConnect seems to be decreasing rapidly, with last count at Sir Thomas More than 138,000 worldwide.

2008 – Lively: Google's answer to Second Life sentence, this social experiment lasted less than six months, closing its realistic, 3-D doors on December 31, 2008.

February, 2009 – Latitude: Adding a interpersonal portion to Google's popular Maps seemed like an easy mode to compete with Squarely, although today it's turn perchance known as a self-still hunt puppet for those obsessed with keeping track of their own movements. Patc Latitude never caught up with FourSquare, I'll be shocked if its features put on't get on key components of Google+.

May, 2009 – Google Waving: If thither's any reason to believe that Google+ might flop, IT's Wave. Meant to be an everything application, Wave was supposed to revolutionize real-time collaboration while incorporating social networking, well … kind of. It's in reality a trifle hard to describe, and it turns out information technology was hard to use likewise.

August, 2009 — Social Gadgets for iGoogle: Google reprised the social widget concept first seen in FriendConnect with these small games and collaborative apps that could be added to users' personalized iGoogle homepages. I was astonished to find some of these gadgets still along my iGoogle paginate, which I oasis't visited for well o'er a year now.

February, 2020 – Google Buzz: Google's answer to services like Digg and the pandemic of link-sharing on Facebook and Twitter ne'er caught fire, just could get a moment life happening Google+.

February, 2020 – Aardvark: This elite group answers situation had a small cult favorable long-life before Quora. Google purchased it and moved it to Google Labs, where it has languished, perchance ready to be folded into Google+?

October, 2020 – Social Search: This is Google's effort to gather the valuable data from the social graph that Facebook has and Google and then covets because it could be the next evolution of search. Many Google users have become used to these added search results past now, although I haven't ground them too useful. This is other no-brainer for eventual integration into Google+.

August, 2020 – Slide: Google bought this social gaming company sensible under a year ago, and little other has been heard connected the theme, but it's interesting to note that the company has such a division under its extended collapsible shelter as Plus rolls out.

July, 2020 – Google+: It's been a while since such a limited squinched beta has generated so much excitement. Google+ has the voltage to bring in collaboration all the lessons learned from the aforementioned social adventures, let alone integration of Google's many unusual recognized properties, not the least of which are Picasa, YouTube and Android. On the other hand, it also has the potential to become just another entry in this very long listing.