By Richard Waters in San Francisco
Google has opened the doors to the first business users on its Google+ social network, taking an important step in its battle with Facebook to bring a stronger social dimension to its dominant online advertising business.
The long-awaited move is set to unleash demand from business users who have not been able to create pages on Google+.
Launched in June, the number of users on the network has risen to 40m, which Google has said is above its expectations, though it pales in comparison to the more than 800m users of Facebook.
With the new Pages feature, businesses will be able to create their own profiles on the network, allowing other users to comment directly on the company or product and to add their own endorsements by clicking on ?+1?. The first users were announced on Monday, with all businesses having access to the service ?soon?, the company said.
A similar feature on Facebook has become a central part of that social network?s appeal to businesses, allowing them to forge direct relationships and get feedback from current or potential customers. They are also able to send messages to users who have clicked a ?Like? button on their page.
More than 35m Facebook users have added their endorsement to the Coca-Cola page. Some companies have also begun trying to make sales through their Facebook page, with Time Warner, which made Batman: the Dark Knight available on the service, the first to test film sales earlier this year.
Businesses have been forced to wait for a chance to reach the burgeoning Google+ audience since the company acted soon after the network?s launch to block anything but personal pages. Tens of thousands of businesses applied for a chance to take part in a trial, and the search company admitted at the time that it had failed to anticipate the huge demand.
Google+ could have added appeal for business users given the potential for it to be integrated into other Google services. Business pages could be given priority in Google?s search results, for instance, in the same way that the company gives preference to some of its own services.
They could also be included in Google?s local information and map services, giving them greater reach beyond the immediate Google+ network, according to some analysts.
The search company is also betting on core features of the Google+ network to set its service for business users apart from Facebook. It said that users who add a business page to one of their circles – a way to group pages into different categories – would in future receive advertising messages directly from the business concerned. The group video feature called Hangouts would also be available for businesses to connect with groups of customers, it said.
? The Financial Times Limited 2011