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‘Google Me’ might be Google’s new social network

Tom Clarke

Tom Clarke

  • Updated:

Further rumors have appeared that seem to confirm beyond any doubt that Google is planning to launch a social network service to rival Facebook. In these latest stories, Google is reported to be in talks with various games developers, including Disney’s Playdom and Zynga (a company in which Google has recently invested a large amount of money).

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This news follows previous claims that Google is definitely working on a social network service to be called Google Me. Google hasn’t exactly experienced huge success in the social realm thus far. It purchased Brazilian giant, Orkut in 2008 and has presided over a gentle slide in that network’s traffic (Orkut remains #1 in Brazil, but Facebook is making inroads). The Socialstream project never came to much. Buzz and Wave haven’t proven to be game changers and despite the company’s great successes in other areas, like mobile OS Android, you get the feeling that its social networking efforts have been almost entirely unfocused.

But put a few of Google’s more recent search tweaks may prove that the firm’s involved in some pretty serious research. Recently, Google Profiles started to show up more in search results. Sharing items and subscribing to users’ feeds has improved in Reader (after multiple tweaks) and last month Google even let users customize the classic front page of their search engine (a common criticism of Facebook is its lack of customization options).

Of course, this could all  just be pointing to Google launching something altogether easier and cheaper. A social games platform would fit that bill. But I reckon the clues point to a more unified alternative to Facebook that combines social games, Profiles, Buzz, Reader, Gmail, Wave, Docs and everything else into one central social hub.

Tom Clarke

Tom Clarke

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