Businesses and brands looking to stake out turf in the early exploration of Google's new social networking platform are being urged to hold their horses. In fact, Google is warning those eager prospectors to avoid building business-related Google+ profiles ... or they will be "shut down."
In return for their patience, Google is promising a version of the Google+ "experience" built specifically for business.
Google's Christian Oestlien explains some of what is coming for businesses in this minute-long video:
In the video, Oestlien says:
"I wanted to take a quick minute to talk to everyone about our plans for supporting business, brand and other entities. Right now we're very much focused on optimizing for the consumer experience, but we have a great team of engineers building similarly optimized business experience for Google+. We're very excited about it and hope to roll it out later on this year. It will include things like rich analytics and the ability to connect that identity to other parts of Google that businesses might use on a daily basis, like AdWords. So we are asking people to hold off on using consumer profiles to get a business identity on Google+"
And they're actually doing more than asking, as Oeslien notes in a blog post:
The business experience we are creating should far exceed the consumer profile in terms of its usefulness to businesses. We just ask for your patience while we build it. In the meantime, we are discouraging businesses from using regular profiles to connect with Google+ users. Our policy team will actively work with profile owners to shut down non-user profiles.
Got that?
(Update: Think Google is kidding about the shutdowns? The folks over at The Next Web will tell you otherwise, as they've already been shown the door.)
(Update 2: Ad Age has an interview with Oestlien in which he explains how some of the brand-name early adopters, such as Ford, will not have to be worried about losing their spots. Others are being encouraged to apply to be part of a group that will be testing the business-focused features.)
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