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The +s and s

As soon as Google+ was introduced, it was clear it was going to kill something.

Whether it would be killing Facebook or simply “killing it,” Google+ was going to shake up social networking.

Unsurprisingly, it has done that in less than a month on the market.

But the social web is only the beginning of what this plus-sized network could one day do. It has the potential to change everything from email to phone calls, from business to politics.

When Google’s vice-president of engineering, Vic Gundotra, introduced Google+, he focused solely on the service’s Facebook-like characteristics.

“The subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools. In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.”

Lofty goals, but this is just a modest account of what Google+ can do.

If the search giant integrates all its other services into its new network, it will double as a business and recruiting tool.

The first casualty of Google+, then, might be LinkedIn.

Many companies already use Google’s enterprise products – including this magazine. But when/if Gmail, Gchat, Calendar, Tasks, Docs, Analytics and Apps (for starters) get embedded in Google+, it will become the ultimate collaboration, communication and productivity tool. I predict it will be ubiquitous in offices.

Google profiles will then take over LinkedIn profiles. Think resumes submitted and vetted via Google+.

Add Google’s Checkout, its online shopping network, to Google+ (that’s Checkout+Google+) and I see no reason why a vibrant, valuable marketplace wouldn’t emerge.

More online commerce wouldn’t be far behind: banking, billing, rent, invoicing and anything else having to do with money all in one place.

And consider Google Voice, the internet-powered free phone service. Attach that to Google+’s many mobile platforms and phone calls will be forever changed.

Integrated into Google+’s iPhone app, launched this week and made largely in Google’s outpost in the thrilling tech city of Kitchener-Waterloo, Google Voice is poised to put a large dent in telecoms alone.

Optimistically, Google+ is one of those aspirational products that could change the world for the better. I could write a multi-volume book on all the problems it could one day solve just with its current products.

But it’s also alarming to think about how much more dominant this all would make the already-dominant California company. With a finger in almost every sector of online business, Google could move even closer to absolute power. And absolute power corrupts absolutely, as they say.

So the test then becomes not whether Google+ can achieve all this, but whether people should trust it to.

Because if Google+ does become a hub for all the company’s many useful services, it will be not just a business tool or a social network, but a place where you could conceivably live your entire life.

joshuae@nowtoronto.com | twitter.com/joshuaerrett

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