Google Takes On Pinterest With Google+ Collections

Google+ pushed into Pinterest’s territory today, introducing a new feature to enables users to organize content by category.

Called Collections, the new Google+ feature is very similar to Pinterest Boards and gives people the ability to create a space for their favorite things broken down by topic. Collections can be shared publicly, privately or with a specific set of Google+ users. Collections can be followed and posts within Collections that users follow will appear in their home feeds on Google+. After a user or Page creates a Collection, a Collection tab will appear on given profile.

Google’s Dmitry Shapiro announced the launch in a Google+ post, using very Pinterest-like language:

Our happiest Google+ users are those who connect with others around shared interests and passions. So we set out to give people a place to express the things they love.

No doubt the new feature will get some love from marketers as well. Now brands and businesses will finally be able to create topic-based feeds on Google+. To do that previously, marketers would have had to create separate Google+ Pages for each topic or vertical, a step that few social media professionals were willing to commit to, but being able to give fans the ability to follow specific categories is a valuable feature.

BuzzFeed, Brit + Co. and Innova Disc Golf were among the early testers of Collections:

Collections are being rolled out starting today on Android and the web, with iOS coming later.