I've been seeing Google differently since G+. Google, the global CDN and distributed computer, is a platform now. G+ is the frontend they're building on top of Google to bring all their Google-based services together.
Obviously they're getting people to commit to their social identities on G+ so they can meet their stated goal of becoming an identity provider.
The war is on between Twitter, Facebook, and Google and it has nothing to do with the number of messages or advertisements that can be served. It's the number of end user identities that can be authenticated.
