14 DAY TRIAL // Google has finally fulfilled one of the most requested features around Google+, the ability for Google Apps users to sign up. This will enable businesses and schools to enable their users to create Google+ profiles.
While Google+ may not seem like a particularly business-oriented product, social networking has as much importance at the work place, not to mention schools, as it does at home.
Google Apps users will be able to create regular profiles which look and feel just like everyone else's. The one difference is that they'll be able to share inside their company or school via a new circle created automatically.
"Google Apps fans, today we’re ready to add you to our circles," Ronald Ho, Product Manager at Google, wrote.
"Google+ makes sharing on the web more like sharing in the real world, and now Google+ is available to people who use Google Apps at college, at work or at home," he said.
Apps admins will have to enable Google+ for their organization, after which everyone can sign up for an account. Of course, if admins have set up Apps to automatically enable new services, as they become available, Google+ will be added in a few days.
"Google Apps users will have access to the same set of features that are available to every Google+ user, and more," Google explained.
"In addition to sharing publicly or with your circles, you’ll also have the option to share with everyone in your organization, even if you haven’t added all of those people to a circle," it said.
Google+ should be really useful at schools. After all, Facebook started out as a social network for colleges and this isolation is what made it interesting in the early days.
Now, with Google+ and Apps, schools will be able to create their own private social networks within the larger public social network.
This raises the question of how private things happening inside schools and companies can stay since anyone can post anything publicly, for the world to see. For Google+ to become a truly useful option for schools and businesses, better controls will have to be added.