What's Google+ upto?

Google+ is the new social networking service launched by Google few days back.

afaqs! picked up few news stories to find out the latest talk about Google+ (plus).

1. Is Google+ game for it?

Technology blog Engadget indicates that Google might launch 'social games' and 'questions' features on Google+ network in the future. The blog has discovered it after scanning the source code of the social networking service. The post titled "Google+ code reveals intent to unleash Games and Questions to the social world", mentions, "Buried deep in Google Plus' source code are a few curious references to at least two new services that may very well be destined for the invite-only social networking suite."

About the 'Questions' features, the blog post says, "When the source code offers up hints like 'you might try rephrasing or tagging your question to make it easier for someone to answer,' along with the utterance of sharing questions with others and commenting on answers, nothing could be more indicative of a social service."

2. Waiting for apps

In a blog post titled, "Developer API for Google+: It's coming Technology", in
News.Cnet.com
, author Rafe Needleman claims that Vic Gundotra, senior vice-president, social, Google, has indicated that Google+ platform might be opened for apps developers. "I'm a developer guy at the core. It is inconceivable I would build something without a platform," says Gundotra in the News.Cnet.com blog post. Needleman further mentions that Google is collecting e-mail addresses of developers who would like to stay updated and get information about Google+ developer opportunities.

3. Buy invites on eBay

TheNextWeb.com, the digital media blog, reports that a few people have started selling Google+ membership invites on popular e-commerce website Ebay.com. The blog mentions that Google+ membership invites are available on eBay.com in the price range of $0.99 to $27 with the promise of instant delivery.

4. The first privacy breach

One of the core features of Google+ social network is 'Circles', which will basically enable a user to categorise and create various friend groups and share specific content with a particular group. Thus a user can control the content sharing process on Google+.

Ideally, if a user shares information within a specific group, it should never be available for consumption/viewing to all Google+ users (public), even if somebody - who is a part of the group/circle with whom the user has shared the content-- reshares the content. But Financial Times has pointed out to a flaw and in its blog post titled 'The first Google+ privacy flaw' mentions that content shared within a specific group or circle can be made public by using the re-sharing option. The blog post further mentions that the 'resharing' problem has been reported to Google.

Digital media blog, Zdnet.com claims in a blog post "Google+ faces first social networking privacy flaw" that Google has partially fixed the problem. The post says, "A drop-down menu has been enabled for users to disable resharing after a post has already been made."

5. The great wall of China

Various international publications reported that Google+ was blocked in China after a day it was launched worldwide. Publications claimed that according to Greatfirewallofchina.org, a China-based website which checks the availability of sites within China, was not able to access the site for a day. However, a news story "Google+ service not banned in China: Early reports false" carried in International Business Times (UK.ibtimes.com) today, points out that Google+ service is available in China. The story further mentions that the Chinese government has not released any official statement on the same issue. For the record, Facebook and Twitter are banned in China.