Google is in the test phase of its new social media platform dubbed Google+; a serious competitor to Facebook. The layouts of both Facebook and Google + are almost identical; in both sites comment streams run down the center of the page, groups on the left and friend suggestions on the right ,the chat windows appear in the bottom-right corner.

A huge difference between Google+ and Facebook, is the way Google forces users to separate family, friends, acquaintance into separate groups called “circles”. In addition, the Google+ profiles separate information into tabs, like Facebook used to do before recently mashing everything into a single view.

For now, Google+ is available only on android and has a unique group chat feature called Huddle. Once out of the field trial phase, Google + will be available for everyone.

Stay tuned for more information in upcoming newsletters about the new social media craze.