Google Wants More Face Time Than Facebook - The UpStream

Google Wants More Face Time Than Facebook

posted Sunday Jul 18, 2010 by Jon Wurm

Google Wants More Face Time Than Facebook

The world is more than familiar with social networking giant Facebook and this is starting to scare Google a little bit. That is an odd statement to make and I had some concern that a hole would rip in space and time but it's true, and maybe they should be.

For those of us who have ever used Orkut which is Google's social networking project. You will immediately notice a user interface that is quite lacking in aesthetics and functionality. This is probably due to the fact that Orkut has been a back burner project for quite some time. Google also realized that Buzz was not enough to break into social networking properly. Adam D'Angelo, a former Facebook director, shared what he has heard about a full scale Google social networking site called Google Me:

Hit the break for more info on Google Me.

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.

The last point D'Angelo made is very important because it highlights Google's carelessness and late entry into social networking which is a huge part of the Internet, something Google tries to interject itself in more every minute. At the rate Facebook continues to grow, their social graph may allow them to create a search engine that can compete with Google's PageRank system.

Recently, Google sent out e-mail to the press asking for their attendance on July 20th at their San Fransisco office for a brief press event. Marissa Mayer, the VP of Search Products and User Experience will be introducing some new things that we will want to see. This press event would be a good opportunity for a Google Me announcement but I am interested in what else they will debut as well.

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