If you’re one of the lucky few who got in on Google+ when the first few invites went out – chances are you’ve thought about making a profile for your business on Google+. It’s the natural thing to do – you have a business twitter account, a business facebook account, so now you create a Google+ profile for your business. Google+’s product manager Christian Oestlien made a post on his Google+ profile asking businesses to hold off on creating a profile page.
We have been watching Google+ take shape over the last week and we’ve seen some really great companies get involved. But frankly we know our product as it stands is not optimally suited to their needs. In fact, it was kind of an awkward moment for us when we asked Ford for his (or was it her?) gender!
How users communicate with each other is different from how they communicate with brands, and we want to create an optimal experience for both. We have a great team of engineers actively building an amazing Google+ experience for businesses, and we will have something to show the world later this year.
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.
He also released the following video: