Google+ invites halted after 'Insane demand'

SAN FRANCISCO: Google shut down the invite mechanism for its new Google+ social network after “insane demand,” said Vic Gundotra, head of social efforts, on the company’s website. Google unveiled the service on June 28 in a fresh attempt to compete with Facebook’s site. Google+ looks similar to Facebook, with streaming updates of photos, messages, comments and other content from selected groups of friends.

Chief executive officer Larry Page is starting Google+ after missteps last year with the introduction of a social component to Gmail called Buzz. Google needs to fix the invitation glitch quickly if it wants to effectively challenge Facebook, the world's largest social network, said Josh Bernoff, an analyst with Forrester Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“The utility of a social environment depends on your ability to invite people to it,” Bernoff said in an interview Friday. “If you want to try this out but your friends are not on the system and cannot get on the system because of the blocking of the invitation, it’s not a very good test.”

The social network will initially be available to only a limited set of users, Google said. The company said it has been testing Google+ internally and is now ready to gradually open up what it calls a “project” to the general public. “We launched Google+ in a field trial in order to test the product out and gather more feedback,” Google said in an emailed statement. “As part of the field trial, we may open and close Google+ to new users at any time.

We're thrilled so many people are interested in trying out a new approach to online sharing.” The company declined to comment on user numbers in the Google+ test. Overall, Google's site had 1 billion visitors in May globally, making it No. 1, according to market researcher ComScore of Reston, Virginia.