Google goes in search of friends

Google+ users can follow anyone

without being accepted. Photo / AP

It is one month since the launch of Google+, a belated attempt at a social networking tool that invites users to follow friends' activities in their news feed and share favourite content by marking it "+1".

If this sounds familiar, it shows the extent to which Google is playing catch-up with Facebook, which is brewing a public offering next year that could value the firm at US$100 billion ($117 billion).

Even Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, has conceded that Google has been late to the social networking space and the lucrative commercial opportunities.

But with Google's proven commercial success nudging its market value towards US$200 billion, and data vaults that hold the browsing histories of most of the online population, is Google really on a downward trajectory and is the era of search really ending?

Ben Gomes has worked on every aspect of Google's core search product and is leading exploration into the social navigation of search.

Despite Google's forays into everything from video communities to mobile operating systems, he insists Google is still a search company at heart. Read More...