Google+ Hits 170 Million Users With Fresher Design, New Features

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has refreshed the design of Google+, its social networking service which competes with the likes of Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and LinkedIn (NASDAQ:LNKD). Following the update, Google+ now has a cleaner interface with a revamped navigation bar, and redesigned profile pages, better discovery elements and a dedicated page for Google Hangouts. The new design is visibly less cluttered, and incorporates a lot of white space between the page elements, possibly a bit too much. ^[1]

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Along with the update, Google also revealed that more than 170 million users have adopted to Google+, but it’s not clear how many of them are actually active users, which has been a major issue for Google+ and led to far lower engagement levels than Facebook.

With the new design, Google+ also aims to offer greater visibility to widgets and apps used on the platform. It also seems to be focusing on images, Hangouts, Circles and a new Explore feature, which helps you discover new content which is trending across the network.

With these updates, Google aims to attract a significant user base and generate increasing amounts of display advertising revenue from Google+. The social data gathered from Google+ could also help it improve its core search experience and generate more revenue from advertising by offering better targeting features.

Search and display advertising account for more than 75% of Google’s total $670 Trefis price estimate, which stands 4% above its market price.

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1. Google+ Gets A Big Refresh With New Navigation, A Redesigned Stream, A Dedicated Hangouts Page & More, Techcrunch [↩]