Yesterday, we all finally got some news regarding Google Places. As rumored, Places was finally merged with Google Plus, with the final product now being Google Plus Local. This is not only Google's latest effort to move with the times, but to also keep Google Plus as a relevant entity.
Google Plus Local will now be interfacing with Zagat (which Google acquired in last year), and it will push features which will encourage users to network and interact. After its launch last year, Google maintained optimism for Plus by reporting tens of millions of users (one of their counts was over 100 million). However, when taking a longer look, outside analysts found that actual interaction from those users is extremely small - especially compared to Facebook.
The real question from this latest development is still the same one that many have been asking for months - will this be the spark that finally boosts Google to a contender social media sector?