Does Google have the right make-up to make Google+ work?

The Google+ project, the company's latest and — if you're a three strikes type — most important attempt to jump into the social-networking pool — is currently being tested by a handful of folks.

Can Google+ succeed where past efforts like Wave and Buzz failed? Can Google’s mobile advantage – with millions of Android devices strong targets to extend Google+ into the mobile world – help it catch its social rivals? And perhaps most intriguingly: does the search giant have the right DNA to make a go at building a huge (and hugely successful) social networking app?

Google is certainly a massive company, and at least on the surface, it’s a “fun” one too – a seeming prerequisite for building a social/mobile blockbuster. Haven't we all heard about the free sushi in the commissary, the Razor scooters employees scoot around on? They name their OS versions after desserts!

Why shouldn't they succeed at a business like social media? Maybe the better question: Why have they failed so far?

A Quick Look at ‘Real’ Social Media Upstarts

Perhaps Google could take a lesson from the socially-inclined Tumblr, the 4-year-old site that now supports more blogs than the 8-year-old Word Press.

"When David Karp created Tumblr, he made the decision to allow users to only upload one song a day," an industry insider, familiar with the details, recently told me.

"It would've been tough for something like Tumblr to have been invented on the West Coast," he continued, "because its engineering-centric culture may not have placed the same level of importance on some of the subtle design or user experience details that David did."

Engineers could have programed Tumblr to upload thousands of songs a day, but Karp didn't want it to turn into an MP3 repository. He had a different vision for it.

Dennis Crowley had a similarly unique vision for foursquare.

When I brought up that foursquare's new venture with American Express (CP: Foursquare funding, Amex deal hint at where local is heading) seemed to me the most logical use for the app so far — there are coupons involved, money, a measurable purpose — this person told me that Crowley's hope for the app is that people use it to engage with the world. I imagined using it to get $10 off my next $75 purchase at H&M.

"Coupons aren't really fun," this person offered, gently. Foursquare's idea, he explained, isn't that you're aware of a potential savings and so head over to a place, but that you check in and are given $10 off, just like that.

"Maybe coupons are fun," he conceded, "but surprises are more fun."

What David and Dennis have in common, he added, is that "neither set out to create technological innovations; theirs are innovations in the user experience, informed by an understanding of human behavior, which is enhanced by being in a place like NYC, where there's a diversity of influences and industries readily available, from tech to art to media to advertising."

Irony Alert: What Do Telcos and Google Have in Common?

One imagines that this time around, Google has hired the necessary consultants or advisors to help fill in the gaps in their take on social media (one of the key architects of its Google+ vision actually left a few months ago to take a job at…wait for it, Facebook). Speaking of Facebook, it’s funny, but I can't remember Facebook explaining itself to me, or pitching me on its usefulness in my life — it seems I just signed up and was off and Friending.

It takes inspiration and a subtle vision, staked in the needs of real-world users, to make a social or mobile application hum. Critics say telcos lack what it takes to deliver such apps. Could Google find itself in the same boat?

The success or failure of its huge social media play in Google+ could tell the tale.

As for today, Google+ isn't yet ready for users, but the company has offered to alert interested parties "the minute the doors are open for real." Is this you — are you an interested party?

"Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online. Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools," Google explained in a June 28 blog post, introducing Google+. "In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it."

Reading this made me feel anxious. Shoot, seriously? Broken? I have new problems I didn't realize?

This doesn't quite feel like fun yet.