Google+ on the ramp

Google Inc. is taking another stab at fending off Facebook and other hot social sites with a new service called Google Plus. It has being designed to tie together all of its online properties, laying the foundation for a full-fledged social network. To set its service apart from Facebook, Google is betting on what it says is a better approach to privacy, a hot-button issue that has burned Facebook, as well as Google, in the past.

Central to Google Plus are so-called "circles" of friends and acquaintances. Users can organize contacts into different customized circles - family members, co-workers or college friends - and share photos, videos or other information only within those smaller groups. Google Plus will be rolled out to a limited number of users in what the company is calling a field trial. Only those invited to join will initially be able to use the service.

Google Plus seems designed to make its online properties a pervasive part of the daily online experience, rather than being spots where Web surfers occasionally check in to search for a website or check email. As with Facebook's service, Google Plus has a central Web page that displays an ever-updating stream of the comments, photos and links being shared by friends and contacts.

A toolbar across the top of most of Google's sites, such as its main search page, its Gmail site and its Maps site, allows users to access their personalized data feed. They can then contribute their own information to the stream. Google Plus will also offer a special video chat feature, in which up to 10 people can jump on a conference call. And Google will automatically store photos taken on cellphones on its Internet servers, allowing a Google Plus user to access the photos from any computer and share them.