The launch of Google+ over a year ago did not go without anticipation. The prospect of the popular search engine launching its own social media site to compete with Facebook sounded very appealing to the general public. However, a year on, the hype around G+ has ceased and the numbers aren’t necessarily on the optimistic side of the story. In April, Vic Gundotra, Senior VP at Google claimed more than 170 million people have signed up to G+ (quote). While that is a pretty big number, by no means it compares to nearly one billion users that Facebook possesses and it probably won’t be catching up so soon either. Nor I believe it should.

In the last few decades, western and Japanese companies have dominated the technological industry. Indeed, names such as Sony, Apple or even IBM manage to ring a bell of even the biggest anti-technological people. However, in recent years, there has been a rapid increase in the number of Chinese companies, be it computer components, mobile devices or IT solutions providers. While 10-20 years ago we would have rejected Chinese products as cheap, unreliable products and knock-offs (not to say they are not), nowadays, such view is changing, albeit slowly. Let’s look at a few examples. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek Top 100 Tech companies ranking (2012), two out of the first three positions are held by Chinese companies, BYD and Tencent holdings respectively (the third one being Apple). While neither of the companies mentioned are equal to technology giants we know per se, it is important to note that they all have reached their respective positions in a relatively short time span.