Google+ opens to the public

Google has opened up its Google+ social network to everyone in its continued drive to topple Facebook.

Until recently, users could only access Google if they were invited by others granted a finite number of invitations. Now, however, Google has opened up the platform to everyone; adding a raft of new features as it did, telegraph.co.uk reports.

Throughout its promotion of the new venture, Google has done away with the doodles and instead animated a large blue arrow pointing to the new '+You' icon at the top left of the screen, which takes users to their Google+ homepage. It has also expanded the 'Hangouts' video-chat section of the site in order to allow for mobile use and broadcasting.

In the near future, Google also plans to link the Hangouts feature with camera-equipped smartphones that feature the Google Android operating system, in order to make the program much more mobile-friendly.

Whilst this signals the next chapter in Google's +1 venture, the firm is still keen to point out to users or brands looking to the site for social media marketing that work hasn't stopped and that its current incarnation is far removed from how the site will eventually come to look.

Speaking to hindustantimes.com, Google senior vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra explained: "We're nowhere near done, but with the improvements we've made so far we're ready to move from field trial to beta.

"Google+ is still in its infancy, of course, but we're more excited than ever to bring the nuance and richness of real life sharing to [the] software. Over the next day we'll be rolling out all of these features globally [so] everyone can visit google.com/+, join the project and connect with the people they care about."