Well, Google never ceases to surprise. And this one came out of left field for me. I had no idea Google was even working on a revamped social network. I guess Orkut never took off in the U.S., although, according to Alexa, it does do surprisingly well in Brazil and India?
But like all of Google’s beta projects I am still awaiting an invitation for Google+. And now, as with Gmail, Voice and Wave, I feel like I am on the outskirts of the elite Google social circle. But for this project, I can understand their apprehension for releasing a social network to the general public. What better way to build up the user count while fostering social interactions. Rather than have a million single users join at once, friends will invite friends, who will invite friends. Makes sense, right? That’s the way Facebook took off. Having a general sense of exclusivity, assuming the project is attractive, can stir up interest.
For now, we’ll have to wait and see. Interesting things ahead for Google, I hope.