Google has been advertising it’s social network, Google+, through all means possible. We reported earlier that Google incorporated results from Google+ into Google’s web search through a new feature ‘Search, Plus Your World.’ This was bitterly criticized by Twitter and others. Now Google has taken another major measure by making it compulsory for all new users who sign up for a Gmail account, to also sign up for a Google+ account at the same time. In a way, this is like forcing new Gmail users to use Google+.
In the new sign-up process, the home window asks the user to provide account information such as name, gender and mobile phone number. Once this information is provided, Google asks the user to provide an avatar for their Google+ account. The user can not opt out of this step. It is compulsory to complete the sign up process. Naturally, he has to upload an avatar and hit ‘Next Step.’
Once the user hits the ‘Next Step’ button, he is told on the next page that he has successfully signed up for both Gmail and Google+ accounts. However, there are some exception to this forced Google+ sign-up. For instance, a child who is of legal age in US to use a Gmail account, which is 13 years, will not have to sign up for Google+ account at the same time since the legal age for a G+ account is 18 years.
We still have to wait and see how exactly other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter will respond to this drastic measure by Google. Google surely is gearing up to use everything it has to make Google+ a success. And these measures are paying off, with Google+ now having about 90 millions users from around the world. We can expect Google to incorporate all of it’s major offerings, such as Youtune, Google search, Google+, Gmail into one single sign-up process. And that will pose a serious challenge to other social networks.
[ttjad]
