Google+ extends beta to business

Several thousand companies applied to take part.

Large numbers of companies have signed up to take part in a trial of business applications that Google is developing for its Google+ social networking service.

Google advertising lead, Christian Oestlien, said in blog posting that “thousands upon thousands” of businesses had applied to take part.

“We won't be able to accommodate everyone, but your interest has got us very focused on accelerating our development plans,” Oestlien wrote.

Google said the deadline for applications was about to close and that it would contact those business applicants that have been successful in being accepted onto the Google+ business testing phase sometime next week.

But the business service results are not expected to bear fruit until later this year.

Google last week began deleting the profiles of businesses eager to experiment with the standard Google+ service.

The company also declared late yesterday that Google+ had already reached the 10-million user mark.

Google chief executive Larry Page said during the company's second-quarter earnings call late yesterday that linking to the service through its new “+1 button” was now being used around 2.3 billion times a day.