The rumors continue to swirl about Google Me, a Google-blended competitor to Facebook. At this point, it’s speculation if this undertaking is real – the rumor was began by a single tweet from Digg co-founder Kevin Rose, which was promptly deleted; but lived long enough to send the tech community into a frenzy. There have been no denials from Google at this point and – let’s be real - it is a logical business move if they can nail it.
It’s a rumor hard to dispel when Google themself has publically “declared war” on their collective social efforts. Google’s Joseph Smarr, who was tapped to lead this effort said “Google’s decided that social is one of its big focuses for 2010, and it’s very natural, as the Web is going social.”
Wait, doesn’t Google already have a social network? Uh, yeah. Okurt. This was their attempt back in 2004. It never really took off in the US, but Brazil loves it. If Google Me is for real, then it will have to outdo that attempt.
All of this said, if Google Me does surface as reality, I’m skeptical. Perhaps it was the sizzle and fizzle of Google Buzz, but I’m not holding my breath. It isn’t the privacy debacle that put me off; it just didn’t work for me. And it took no time at all to discover it wasn’t going to. It was too closely tied to Google itself, requiring a Google email address or ID.
To boot, one can’t ignore the obvious and continued success of Facebook.com. Despite their own privacy issues, they are thriving. There are few people I interact with on a daily basis that don’t have an account – which they use with frequency. (well, not my mom who, regrettably, cannot even find the address bar in a browser window)
Wired.com has a great article on this topic.
A Google Facebook clone that runs on open standards including XMPP and the portable OpenID system — which lets people use one trusted password on multiple sites (including Gmail) — might be enough, over time, to steal users from Facebook. It would let you bring all of your personal data with you when you leave a network with just a few clicks, porting it to a new service in minutes without losing anything and let you maintain one profile for multiple services. Both of these are impossible with Facebook.
“The only way Google could put a dent into Facebook is to go after it the same way it’s gone after Microsoft — open and free with no centralized data collection and a decision that it doesn’t have to own your data,” suggested Wired.com staff writer Ryan Singel as we discussed this issue. “Sure, Google will closely tie in a bunch of its own products, but it can’t go the Buzz way and require you to have a Google ID or Gmail address.”
Openness of the platform may in fact determine its success. And so, we wait.
