This is something Google has been wanting to say for a few years now.

Google launched Google+, integrated it with Hangouts, made it mandatory for businesses to have a profile to improve their performance in search, made it mandatory for authors to have a profile in order for them to see their picture next to their articles in search results, made the user interface more elegant than that of Facebook.

But the activity levels simply refuse to come anywhere near that of Facebook.

After all this effort, they might finally be able to get some traction in matching (and then overtaking Facebook). This is by relying on their primary product, which is search. In fact, Facebook has been making in-roads into this space with its own Graph Search. But Google seems to want to invert (so to say) what Facebook does with Graph Search, and this might actually win over the audience.

Through Graph Search, Facebook allows you to find people who have been to certain places, who have lived in certain cities, who have worked at certain companies, who like certain movies, etc. But still, when in trouble, the first place people go to for information is Google.

Google+ are looking to offer the advantages of Graph Search through their search engine. Whenever you search for some information in Google, most results that turn up are articles (which are written by people). When you search for products/services, the websites of companies that sell them turn up.

Google wants to add a social element to this process of searching and show up an option to contact the author of the post (via Google+) that you find interesting after your search query. Also, a section could highlight people in your Google+ circles who are experts in the area related to your search query. This is beneficial both to the author who is probably looking to establish her authority as a subject matter expert, and to the user who needs more information than is available in the article.

Will this be enough to make you say 'Move over Facebook. I now prefer Google+'?