Taking advice from anyone associated with MySpace might, on the surface, seem to make as much sense as asking Casey Anthony for parenting tips (too early?), or LeBron James what it takes to win a championship. But let's not forget that, at one point, MySpace ruled the fickle social networking scene, even if only because it didn't really have any competition. Still, the site sold for upwards of $580 million before plummeting in value, so at some point, MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson must have been doing something right, so maybe Google should hear him out.

Remember the character Pat from Saturday Night Live in the early 1990s? Played by Julia Sweeney, this androgynous character later appeared in It's Pat, a film based off of those sketches. That character, along with Julia Sweeney, have long since retired Saturday Night Live, but if Pat was still around today, he/she could sign up on Google+ and others still wouldn't be able to determine the character's sex.

Later today, Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen (and not the Paul Allen with Microsoft roots) plans to post exactly how many users he thinks have flocked to Google+ so far, based on his calculations. In the meantime, Allen says the upstart social networking service is "growing like crazy" and probably has more than 4.7 million users already. If you're a Google fan, that's an encouraging sign, and a big first step towards competing with Facebook, the current king of social networks.

Twitter isn't just about tweeting what you had for lunch, and there's more to Facebook than 'poking' your friends and growing your farm. If you're a business owner, social networking is a great tool for promoting your brand, and at some point, Google+ will join the fray. For the time being, however, Google is asking businesses, universities, and other organizations not to bother with its social networking service.