Google+ opened to world+dog

Google has allowed world+dog onto Google+, its latest attempt to turn itself into Facebook.

Mountain View launched a "Google+ field trial" in late June, letting users join by invitation only. But after making "99" different improvements to the social networking service, the company has announced that anyone can now sign up without an invitation.

"We’re nowhere near done, but with the improvements we’ve made so far we’re ready to move from field trial to beta, and introduce our 100th feature: open signups," writes Google vive president of engineering Vic Gundotra.

On Tuesday, the company also introduced "improvements" 91 through 99, including video chat "Hangouts" on Android phones, public video broadcasts, screensharing, a Sketchpad, and integration with Google Docs.

The company has also introduced APIs for its online Hangouts, and it has added a search tool to Google+ as a means of finding people and posts on the service, as well as content from across the web. According to the company, more than one billion items are shared and received on the service each day.

Video chat demands a local phone application, and this requires Android 2.3 or later and a front-facing camera. Currently, only a limited number of people can broadcast video, but anyone on the service can tune into these broadcasts, and they can also be recorded for later playback. ®