In a sign of the seriousness with which they are taking new social network Google+, the search giant have announced they are to shut down their online testing ground for new products and ideas ‘Google Labs’.

Labs was dubbed the “playground where our more adventurous users can play around with prototypes of some of our wild and crazy ideas” however despite its popularity with some, Google wind down the service, with many projects being shut down, in an attempt to focus on its latest social networking effort, and taking on the threat of Facebook and Twitter which continue to take up more and more of users browsing time.

The closing of labs will be seen as a shame to many, with lots of useful and innovative projects being featured on there, along with it being the base from which hugely successful services Google News, Google Reader and Google Maps were originally launched, however Chief Executive Larry Page said it was time for the company to have ‘more wood behind fewer arrows’ – in plain English – put more focus, on fewer projects.

With over 10million users already signed up to Google+, it looks set to be Google’s most successful attempt by far in the social market, and this realigning of focus shows just how seriously they are taking it, however it will take a lot more than focus for them to turn the 10million into the 700million+ user base which Facebook has built up.

For more information regarding Google+ or anything social media marketing related, get in touch with the team at dijitul today on 01623 650333.