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Buzz was just for starters -- here comes Google Me (look out Facebook, lock up your daughters, etc.)
It's just a series of bullet points, which Adam D'Angelo says he's 'pieced together from reliable sources'. Still, they make for fantastic reading: [the following is copied and pasted!]
- This is not a rumor. This is a real project. There are a large number of people working on it. I am completely confident about this.
- They realized that Buzz wasn't enough and that they need to build out a full, first-class social network. They are modeling it off of Facebook.
- Unlike previous attempts (before Buzz at least), this is a high-priority project within Google.
- They had assumed that Facebook's growth would slow as it grew, and that Facebook wouldn't be able to have too much leverage over them, but then it just didn't stop, and now they are really scared.
Does anyone else think that Google looks more and more like a lumbering giant that simply throws fistfuls of resources and money at its problems? A bit like Microsoft...?
(And what on earth happened to the Google-owned Orkut...?!)
[via Inside Facebook]
Comments
22
Subscribe to commentsgreatgooglymooglyJun 29th 2010 8:27AM
Orkut was invaded and taken over by Brazilians, for some strange reason.
Sebastian AnthonyJun 29th 2010 8:29AM
Well, you could say the same thing about Facebook... it has tons of 'other' nationalities too! Doesn't prevent 'everyone else' from using it :)
Twitter has a HUGE Japanese population, but English speakers never see them!
RafaJun 29th 2010 8:50AM
It was because of the invite system. Brazilians are crazy for invite-only sites.
KaushikJun 29th 2010 8:59AM
Google didn't pay attention to the social network phenomenon and Orkut went dead. Now it's just better and more practical to launch a new network then revive the dead project.
gisa.ombroamigoJun 29th 2010 9:03AM
We didnt invaded it.. we simply stay... everyone has leaving to myspace and we simply didnt.
RafaJun 29th 2010 8:53AM
Now could this Google Me thing be related to Social Stream, that project from Carnegie Mellon that Google sponsored a few years ago? Just a thought.
Praveen PremchandranJun 29th 2010 10:19PM
Here's the link to Goog-sponsored Social Stream... Might be what Google Me might look like?
http://www.hcii.cmu.edu/M-HCI/2006/SocialstreamProject/index.php
Sebastian AnthonyJun 30th 2010 7:13AM
I'm sure, even if it doesn't look exactly like that, it will use it as underlying code :)
MedlirJun 29th 2010 11:18AM
@Sebastian
You really can't say the same about Facebook as Orkut. It wasn't just the fact that there was a lot of Brazilians, it's that they literally took over everything. Even communities marked as English-only were flooded with Portuguese posts, polls, etc and it became a huge chore and time investment for community owners to maintain/moderate their communities because they couldn't read half the posts, and even if you deleted all the Portuguese content from your English community it still took forever. It really did prevent and discourage other people from using it.
Sebastian AnthonyJun 29th 2010 11:28AM
Fair enough! I'd heard reports of stuff like that, but I'd never seen it with my own eyes :)
Mirek2Jun 29th 2010 12:02PM
I'm glad Google's entering the game: it'll be nice to have a Facebook alternative.
That said, I do think Google is becoming more like MS in that it has a bunch of random projects that it rarely takes the time to polish -- I wish it was more focused and more confident in the direction it is going. I mean, it has two OS projects in the works (Chrome OS, Android), at least three communication projects (GMail, Google Talk, Wave), two video upload sites (thankfully, Google Video is closing in favor of YouTube), two separate QnA projects (a social-based, Facebook-connected Aardvark service and a Russian-only QnA site), a very buggy Docs service (though, sadly, still one of the best available), some desktop software (Chrome, Picasa, Earth, Desktop, Talk, all of which have their own unique interfaces), and all this is kind of stuck together under the label of Google services without really much genuine connection... It'd be nice if they connected the dots for once and didn't keep their services a bag of mixed nuts.
Sebastian AnthonyJun 29th 2010 12:22PM
Great points!
And it's just begging to be turned into some kind of feature... 'Google and its predilection for sticking its finger in pies.'
mairondilJun 29th 2010 3:11PM
Don't forget Google Voice
Johnny latelyJun 29th 2010 12:30PM
the question is ... will Google be the jackasses that they are and tie this to our personal e-mail accounts and choose our friends for us and automatically opt us in without our consent ..like their epic blunder with BUZZ .... before buzz i was a diehard google user , im still so pissed off at google for adding me to a service that i did NOT want , then sharing my personal address book with strangers , then making it so that even if i dont use their service strangers can follow me by default without my permission ... that i barely use any google products anymore ....
mairondilJun 29th 2010 3:15PM
Is it wrong of me to Facebook Like this post?
EatmoldJun 29th 2010 6:06PM
As much as I love all things Google, this seems pointless. I, like many other tech savvy people, will join and play. But will the "users" ever leave facebook? No. Facebook, with all it's privacy issues, has the majority of join internet users hooked... Not going to change, unfortunately.
LarryJun 30th 2010 9:22AM
Well the same was once said of AIM.
EatmoldJun 30th 2010 9:25AM
Very true Larry. I would love to see a true Social Networking battle.
Jorge AvilaJun 29th 2010 7:17PM
Google Scared?. LOL.
ScootahJun 29th 2010 11:29PM
Look, I'd love a google me solution that tightly integrated with gmail, gtalk, google voice, google reader, blogger and google buzz and had a great interface. I never used Orkut much because it was clunky and not very good. But Google have the potential to do something cool in this space. Certainly better then Facebook's offerings.
But arguing that Google is in any way scared of Facebook is just naive. Google sees a revenue generation channel and they're pursuing it. That's all. Facebook doesn't threaten google's market in any significant way - they just happen to have demonstrated that there's a market niche that google can probably grab a chunk of.
The suggestions of Google being afraid of Facebook probably come from the same people who think Apple's MarCap is a more reasonable gauge of business success then Microsoft's annual profits.