Google+ Throws Open Its Doors, Tosses Out Invite System

Posted 09/20/2011 at 10:36am | by Brad Chacos

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Even though Google used an invitation system to control access to its new Google+ social network, the thing took off like gangbusters. It was the fastest network to ever reach 25 million visitors in its first month, and Facebook has been rolling out feature after feature that look suspiciously similar to offerings on the Goog’s service. If you couldn’t score an invite and have been wondering what all the hub-bub was about, today’s your day; Google+ is now open to all comers.

Google had already made 91 improvements to Google+ prior to today. Early this morning, the company’s SVP of Engineering, Vic Gundotra, tossed up a blog post outlining nine new features. The new open door policy was number 100. How’s that for poetic?

“For the past 12 weeks we’ve been in field trial, and during that time we’ve listened and learned a great deal,” Gundrota wrote. “We’re nowhere near done, but with the improvements we’ve made so far we’re ready to move from field trial to beta, and introduce our 100th feature: open signups. This way anyone can visit google.com/+, join the project and connect with the people they care about.”

You heard the man; feel free to go visit the site and poke around if you haven’t yet. In the meantime, new adopters may want to check out our Cheat Sheet for G+ as well as the technique for disabling email notifications from the service.