Is GooglePlus about to become the new social network?

The famous search engine, Google.com, is branching out to include a

social networking site.

The new target="_google">GooglePlus Social Network was unveiled for the first

time on Tuesday, and people began to be use it, by invitation only, on

Wednesday night.

Google had to shut down the invitation feature after hundreds of people

flooded the new social scene, because of the "insane demand," said Vic

Gundotra, Google's head of social. "We need to do this carefully and in a

controlled way."

According to href="http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/29/google-opens-up-then-closes-google-plus-invites/" target="_google">VentureBeat.com, the high demand for the

new service is "telling."

Although the new project is still in beta testing, it is already

producing a lot of hype that previous Google social projects have not had.

Some people are even claiming it to be the next big thing in

href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/abraham/detail?entry_id=92057"

target="_google">social networking, even pulling users away from popular

networking sites like Facebook and FourSquare.

On the project introduction page it outlines the features that may put

GooglePlus a step ahead of other social networking sites.

First of all, instead of updating your feed to everyone, GooglePlus gives

a user the option of only updating to certain circles. A user can have a

friend circle, a family circle and whatever other circles he or she wants. A

person only posts information to the circles he or she wants to see the

information.

Another feature is Sparks, which pulls articles, videos and other media

it thinks a user would like.

There is also a Skype-like feature called Hangouts, which allows users to

video chat with friends any time they are available without actually calling

them. It is the "unplanned meet-up," according to Google.

For now the invites are still limited, and people are not being added to

the project. But people who want to know when GooglePlus opens its doors for

all users can go to its

href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/learnmore/index.html"

target="_google">website and add their names and email addresses to a

waiting list.