Jul 4, 2011 15:07 GMT  ·  By

Google+ the company's latest, biggest and probably most compelling venture into social networking, is grabbing all of the headlines, but Google has a plan B, of sorts, as well in the social web world.

Slide, a company it bought last year, has been building social apps and services within Google for a while now, none of them having anything to do with the Google+ push and little to do with Google itself.

First, the Disco group messaging app was launched, last week a second venture, Pool Party, a photo-sharing service, was revealed. Now, a third project, Prizes.org has been revealed to be related to the Slide team, and Google, as well.

The idea behind Prizes.org is a simple one, users can create 'contests' in which they ask other users to solve a problem or get help in return of cold, hard cash.

The site is open to everyone, everyone with a Facebook or Twitter account, but regular users still can't create new contests or get any money, those activities are restricted to those that have been invited. Apart from that, users can interact and use the site to its full potential even now.

In an interesting twist, but a similar one to the previous Slide products, there is little to link it to Google, in fact there is nothing on the site itself. Google is not even a sign-up option, new users have to provide a Facebook or a Twitter account.

This may be due to the social nature of the site, Google does not have a very strong social graph for its users, even with Gmail and all of the other products. This may change with Google+, but, for now, Facebook and Twitter are much better options.

Still, it's testament to the level of independence the Slide team enjoys, something that Google touted a few months back when reports of increasing bureaucracy swamping the company were the trend du jour. [via TechCrunch]