Google Me is Coming Soon

Google buys Angstro, hires co-founder to build social networking service

The Internet giant, striving to counter the growth of Facebook, brings in Rohit Khare, whose firm had built innovative tools for social media.

Reporting from San Francisco —

Google Inc. is stockpiling technology and talent for what many believe will be a full-on assault against Silicon Valley rival Facebook Inc.

As part of its campaign to build a social networking service to counter the explosive growth of Facebook, Google confirmed Friday that it had bought up Internet company Angstro and hired its co-founder Rohit Khare.

Khare, a respected Internet researcher, is one of several new faces at Google charged with helping the Internet search giant compete for the eyeballs and dollars increasingly flowing to social networking.

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Google Me vs Facebook part 4

Through acquisitions, investments and internal development, Google is piecing together the makings of a social networking infrastructure – one explicitly designed to challenge Facebook, which has quickly emerged as one of the most potent forces on the web.

But as Google gears up for this big push, Facebook is keenly watching Google’s moves, and is bracing itself for a battle that will shape a more social phase of the internet.
“We are going to see a more cohesive, confident and sensible social push from Google in the coming months,” says Augie Ray, analyst with Forrester Research. “And it comes at a time where there could really be some risk to Facebook.”
The most visible evidence of this fight is Google’s sudden shopping spree. On Friday it bought Jambool, a company that runs virtual currency systems for social games, including those played on Facebook. This month Google paid about $200m for Slide, a major developer of Facebook applications with a wealth of talented engineers. And shortly before that it invested $100m in Zynga, the largest maker of social games.
“They failed to innovate on their own so now they’re throwing their chequebook at it,” says a senior executive close to Facebook.

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Google Me: Have We Been Using It All Along?

The rampant speculation around esoteric social platform Google Me is dominated by talk of Google's numerous failed forays into the territory.

Much of the skepticism is a result of a reasonable expectation that Google is building a destination site, one that could house games and messaging, formatted the way current counterparts are. But what if that's not the plan? What if Eric Schmidt's now infamous quote about not needing another Facebook meant that there is no destination site in the works? What would that even look like?

My guess is that there will be no big announcement, no shiny new product, and no sleek mobile app. I'd venture to say Google is about 20 steps ahead of us, putting the pieces for their platform in place, one product at a time.

Facebook's defining quality, embodied by the ubiquitous "like" button, is to forge connections between people, content and, ultimately, Facebook.com. Google has instead focused on mastering the art of singular products, some of which are organically social and some of which are not. From Maps and Places to YouTube and Gmail, the services are all-encompassing but not contained in a one-size-fits-all destination site. While Facebook operates on a platform-first model, forced to fit new features within an existing framework, Google is essentially a suite of pure features; what's missing is the glue that holds them all together -- integration and a fluid user interface.

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How Google Me Can be Better Than Facebook

Since everyone and your mother are on Facebook, users have little incentive to give it up, even with Facebook's existing flaws. What can Google possibly do to get people to make the switch?

Rumors that Google was starting a Facebook competitor named "Google Me" first surfaced in June, right after the latest wave of anti-Facebook furor. Clearly, there is an opportunity to challenge Facebook for the social networking title. If Google is in it to win it, however, the company has to do a few things that Facebook isn't doing--as well as a few things that Google has failed at in the past. Here's what we'd like to see in a next-gen social network.
Before Google Me: Orkut, Buzz, and Wave

Google has made several attempts to break into the world of social networking, namely through the Orkut, Google Buzz, and Google Wave stand-alone services. Though these offerings haven't managed to reach critical mass, bits and pieces of them may find their way into a better Google network.

While Orkut hasn't gained much traction in the United States, it has succeeded in other countries, most significantly India and Brazil. Part of that is due to Orkut's Promote feature, which lets users share videos and links--but unlike on Facebook, after you've promoted something on Orkut you can see how many people have clicked, viewed, or trashed your item. You can follow the path of your promotion to see how many of your friends have passed it on to other friends, and so on.

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Google me is Around the Corner - Should Facebook be worried?

There has long been talk that Google is ready to give Facebook a run for its money in terms of the social network space. Now, ZDnet reports that Google is just about ready to launch its "Google Me" social network - should Facebook be worried?

It may be important to note here that this isn't Google's first attempt at making a social networking dent. Orkut - Google's Facebook - has proven to be a successful website, but only in a few countries.

Rumors emerging from industry sources such as Venture Beat have all Facebook execs, engineers and other key players are under intense pressure over the next 60 days to ensure Facebook doesn't lose market share.

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Facebook in Lockdown - Preparing for Google Me?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has put the company on "lockdown" for 60 days in preparation for a coming war with Google.

The reason: Google will launch a social network called Google Me sometime between tomorrow and the end of the year, according to a very widely accepted but unconfirmed rumor. The company is also buying up companies to fortify itself for the launch.

But why would a search engine company want to dominate social networking? The answer is that Google isn't a search engine company. Google is in the advertising business. It attracts users by offering a wide variety of free services. Google then uses those services to harvest information about users, which it can then leverage to sell more advertising at higher prices.

Facebook is in the exact same business. Facebook offers its free social network, and uses the activity of users to gain insight that helps them sell more and better ads.

Facebook has more than 500 million users, and is growing fast. According to some reports, Facebook sends more traffic to some types of Web sites than Google does. This no doubt threatens Google's intent to dominate the future of online advertising.

To fight back, Google has recently acquired a game-oriented virtual currency company called Jambool, a social gaming company called Zynga and a social networking applications company called Slide. Google had previously acquired the microblogging service Jaiku.

Google has already tried and failed in three ways to create a social network that can compete with Facebook. First, Google launched its social network, called Orkut. While the service became a hit in Brazil, and gained many users in India, the rest of the world responded to Orkut with an underwhelming "meh!"

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Google Me vs Facebook - part 3

If the rumours of Google Me prove to be true, who will win out in the battle of the social networks? We look at the fight blow by blow.
Facebook has long been the dominating force when it comes to social networks. Even with the likes of Twitter and LinkedIn, Mark Zuckerberg and his team have felt pretty safe with the crown.

However, now arguably the world’s biggest internet player, Google, is rumoured to be working on its own social network – dubbed Google Me – and with its acquisition today of Slide, these rumours look to be turning more into a reality.

So what will Google have over Facebook if this launch becomes reality? Or is the strength of Facebook too much for the search giant to take on?

We take a look at how the companies compete when it comes to social networking nous and if this could benefit your business.

How could Google take number one spot?

One search to rule them all…

Google is undoubtedly the king of search, despite the best efforts from the likes of Microsoft and Yahoo, but search is increasingly becoming a useful tool in social networking.

Twitter is renowned for its trending topics and now Facebook has jumped into the game with its Questions offering.

If search continues to grow and ends up playing a large part in this area of the web, Google is more than ready to exploit this aspect.

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Will Google Fail Again at Social Media?

Google is reportedly working on a blockbuster social networking product, after a string of failed attempts to get in on that market. But after so many failures, you have to wonder if Google culturally able to do social networking?

Google is working with several vendors of popular online games to develop a social networking service to compete with Facebook, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal's Amir Efrati. Google watchers are calling the service "Google Me." Among the companies it's talking to are Playdom, Electronic Arts' Playfish, and Zynga Game Network, vendors of the Facebook hit Farmville. Google recently took a financial stake in Zynga.

Google has tried to launch or acquire social networks several times, but fell on its face almost every time. Buzz, Orkut, and Dodgeball have never risen above niche products.

Social networking is arguably alien to Google's DNA. Silicon Valley entrepreneur Adam Rifkin explains the problem with a delightful metaphor: Internet users can be divided into two groups -- pandas and lobsters.

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Facebook Knows all About Google's Plans

A Facebook engineer was reportedly bragging on Friday at a TechCrunch party that Facebook has obtained copies of proprietary Google documents showcasing its strategy on the yet-to-be-announced ‘Google Me’ social networking, which is said to rival Facebook. The unnamed Facebook engineer is quoted as saying that Facebook “knows all about Google’s social product plans” thanks to the possession of those classified documents.

Mountain View-based Google has not yet confirmed rumors of its upcoming social products. However, several major sources in the tech industry have confirmed that the search giant is indeed planning to rival Facebook with a new social networking site called Google Me. Google has even been caught researching individuals’ social networking habits through focus groups.

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