Schmidt looks to closer integration with Facebook, Twitter

According to Google chairman Eric Schmidt, Google management's decision to keep invites to its latest social network to a minimum has already started paying dividends for the company.

The company announced Google+ last week, at the time it started a limited "field test" that was clearly undertaken to make the project appeal to the Web2.0 crowd.

In an interaction with the media at the annual Allen & Co media event in Sun Valley, Idaho, Schmidt claimed that the company was receiving tons of requests for access to the firm's unfinished Google+ product.

The company deployed the same strategy when it launched its near real-time Google Wave communication tool. However, the product failed to take off after the initial sign-up frenzy subsided and disappointed users quickly dropped Wave and so did Google.

However analysts say, Google+, is a much stronger contender in the popularity stakes, given that the company has already integrated, video chat under the "Hangouts" feature into the system.

In an announcement this week, Facebook said it had hooked up with Skype which would be owned by Microsoft if the Microsoft-Skype deal is approved by regulators. Analysts say this clearly suggests that social networks would need to get serious about VoIP.