Google+ Brand Pages Open for Business, But Will Users Come?

It took a while, but it appears that Google+ may finally be chugging along.

Two weeks ago, Google announced integration for Google Apps users. This week, Google introduced Google+ Pages for products and brands, local businesses, companies, organizations, sports and more.

Google+ Pages have the same design as personal pages, and look and function much like Facebook’s: Photo thumbnails appear at the top of the page, with updates streaming below. The check mark next to the name denotes a verified account (similar to Twitter’s verified user), and the square icon beside it signifies that the profile is a Page, rather than a personal account.

Google+ Pages have all the same features as the personal pages, including customizable profile information, a photo section, Hangouts and more–and I’m sure more capabilities are to come. Pages also have the ability to share circles, which Google’s own Google+ profile did here to promote additional pages that fall under its umbrella:

In addition, Google introduced a new search feature that will make it easier to find and add businesses and brands to your circles. Inserting the + symbol before a query in Google will take you directly to their Google+ Page where you can then add them to a Circle.

Though Google is announcing Google+ Pages for businesses and brands today, not anyone can sign up just yet. Following a link to “Create a page” returns an error message saying, Thanks for your interest in Google+ Pages, but we haven’t finished releasing them to everyone. Please check back soon.

In the meantime, there are a number of live Google+ Pages you can check out: one for TV show Anderson Cooper 360, fashion brand Burberry, Angry Birds and more.

While Google+ appears to be chugging along now, the social network’s first months were criticized from the start: from abruptly shutting down the invitation service and operating instead in a limited beta, to deleting accounts that weren’t linked to real people.

And then came the report last month that Google+ traffic plummeted by a whopping 60 percent. It was clear that users were losing interest.

But now Google+ is continuing to ramp up its product offering, adding more and more features. Will it be enough to earn back the users that abandoned it? Cast your vote below.