Google+: It's friending, with benefits (images)

Google's latest foray into the waters of social media will be a network-building tool called Google+, which will seek to control information better than other social networks.

Parsing the world of sharing into easier-to-digest pieces, Google+ hopes to build a sort of social intranet, where the right content finds the right people.

Here is a view of the Google+ home screen, showing a main stream of all friends' content down the center column; groups of friends, called Circles, run along the left side; with a user's interests, called Sparks, underneath them, giving recent topical news on those subjects.

Invite your friends to chat, and Hangouts automatically puts the person who is speaking, or speaking the loudest, on the upper window, and shows all other chat participants below.

Here, CNET's Declan McCullagh, Elinor Mills, James Martin, and Jay Greene chat on Google+.