Google+ Copies Facebook Poke, Adds 5 More Crappy Actions

Google+, which has just launched some impressive new features such as Paste My Last Thought and Holographic Hangouts, is already adding more functions to keep Facebook behind it.

During the field trial, Google conducted a survey among users of the new service, asking them what feature of Facebook they miss most on Google Plus. Aside from the very popular function for flipping one’s profile photo upside down, and the Add 100 More Random People As My Friend button, the number 1 was clearly the Poke action.

Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice-President of Social Business at Google wrote today in a post, “We couldn’t ignore such a clear signal from our users, so we introduced the Poke feature as soon as possible – and I can assure you, our Poke actually works.” The post was accompanied by photos showing several red and purple spots on his arms.

To avoid any claim of “slavishly copying“, Google+ not only features Poke, but 5 more options to engage with other users: Sue, Eject, Surprise, Clone and Punish.

Vic explained how the new actions are easily mapped to real-life situations. “Boyfriend’s cheating on you? Punish. Someone fooling around with your patented technology? Sue. Need more friends? Clone. Wanna get rid of your stalking neighbor? Eject. And when you just want to do funky stuff, surprise. Real actions, real easy!”

Google+ users have responded positively to the new actions, although not everyone is happy. Mark Zuckerberg, who has a profile on Google+ but didn’t post anything yet, broke the silence yesterday with a short note. “People, stop surprising me. Having 5827 pizzas delivered to my home is too much. Remember, I have a Sue button too, and I’m not afraid to use it!”.

This article was first published on Technorati.