Today Google launched an initial set of Google+ features designed specifically for businesses, initiating a full preview mode for Apps customers.
During the preview period, organizations that have “gone Google” will be able to use the business features of Google+ free of charge through the end of 2013, as more features continue to be added.
For the past few months, pilot customers like Kaplan and Banshee Wines have been using Google+ to help employees engage and connect with each other and Google has incorporated early feedback from pilot customers into its plans.
One of the new features is private sharing, which allows users to restrict posts to designated readers. Restricted posts are private to the organization and can never be re-shared with anyone outside, although the flexibility exists to share it with specific partners or colleagues outside the organization if you choose.
Google Hangouts allows up to 10 people join a video meeting from their laptop, phone or tablet, via Gmail. They can also open a Google doc in a hangout meeting, making it easy for colleagues to write or edit a document together from anywhere. And starting today, users can also add a hangout to a Calendar event, allowing attendees to join the meeting directly from the invite or Calendar entry.
Global advertising agency BBH is already using Google+ to help its 1,000 staff take a more collaborative and efficient approach to internal information sharing. For instance, staff have been holding multi-person video chats through the Hangouts feature in Google+.
Ian Dobb, interim CIO, explains, “As the business expands its global operations, staff are increasingly required to work on cross-country projects with teams spread across multiple countries. For instance, the global executive team recently held its last meeting via a Google Hangout, with participants spread across 12 hours of time zones and three continents. What’s more, cutting back on using a third party video conferencing service will save BBH £100,000 a year.”
Google has more planned for the coming months, including a mobile version of Google+ for enterprise users and more administrative controls.
