After being invite-only for nearly three months, Google+ is opening up to everyone.
Writing on its official company blog about the 99 improvements that have been made to the product since launching, Google's Vic Gundotra wrote, "We’re ready to move from field trial to beta, and introduce our 100th feature: open signups."
Today's update also comes with big improvements to Google+ Hangouts, including the ability to use them on Android devices (version 2.3 and higher). It also includes search, which is a hybrid of content shared on Google+ and results from around the web. "Just type what you’re looking for into the Google+ search box, and we’ll return relevant people and posts, as well as popular content from around the web," Gundotra wrote.
Google+ invites were in high demand when the service first launched in July, and the service attracted 20 million visitors in its first month. Since then, however, the service seems to have lost some of its luster, with a controversy around brand pages fanning the flames.
Facebook has also launched a number of features that challenge what were initially selling points of Google's offering. The leading social network revamped Friend Lists and made changes to the News Feed, both of which bring Google+ Circles-like functionality to the site.
Now that Google+ is open to everyone, we'll see if the service can regain the momentum it had earlier this summer.