Google opens up,takes fight to Facebook

The company said on its official blog its well-received Hangouts feature 8212; where up to nine people can link up and chat with a user on video 8212; will be available on camera equipped smartphones powered by its own Android software. Support for Apple Inc iOS devices is coming soon,it added.

And a user can now host an online broadcast with this feature 8212; recording a session and broadcasting it live for public access online. Black Eyed Peas front man will.i.am will host the first Hangout on Air on Wednesday,Google said.

Hangouts should keep pace with how you socialize in the real-world,so today we8217;re launching it on the one device that8217;s always by your side: your mobile phone,senior vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra said on the blog post.

For its part,Facebook said it was introducing a new ticker on its users8217; home pages,providing real-time notifications of what friends are doing on the service. Facebook also revamped the service8217;s main news feed to flag important items 8212; such as a new baby announcement 8212; for Facebook users who have not logged on for a few days. Facebook also changed the way photos are displayed on the site,increasing the size of pictures that appear in a users8217; news feed.

Facebook is the world8217;s No.1 social networking service,with more than 750 million users. The company has rolled out a series of improvements to its service recently,many of which seem designed to match features Google has used to set apart its rival social networking service,Google.

Google did not say how many people had signed up for Google so far,but confirmed the social network was now open to all,whereas previously it had been invitation-only. Analysts estimate upward of 25 million users have joined Google since its inception.

The company also made its search engine available from within the social network. Users can search from Google and get results not just on the network,but from the worldwide Internet.

Google8217;s infant social network,which counts Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a member,has met skepticism so far. Some are waiting to see if it can maintain the rapid momentum of its first months.

If CEO Larry Page8217;s brainchild 8212; which some say mimics better than Facebook the instinctive categorizing of friends that occurs in real life 8212; takes off,it will come at a pivotal moment for its bigger rival. Facebook is widely expected to go public in 2012.

We8217;re nowhere near done,but with the improvements we8217;ve made so far we8217;re ready to move from field trial to beta,Gundotra said.