by James Mccullough

Created on: August 05, 2010

The latest rumour (as reported by TechCrunch) is that there is an ongoing project by Google to create a version of Facebook named Google Me. The report started with a tweet from Kevin Rose, and spread like wildfire throughout the tech/web blogs. I don't have any valid information about what Google is doing with this project, but from all that I have read, they seem to be doing an outright copy of Facebook. Google Me is a great idea, but could be so much more than just another Facebook. Google could open the doors to a new world of social interaction, making it easier for all of us to create and share, not to be voyeurs.

One of the downfalls of Facebook is how limited it is in operation. There are no real modes of creation on the site. You can post notes, change your status message, post pictures or videos, and that's about it. You can only make basic adjustments to your photos and videos (rotate and tag people) - rather poor editing abilities considering the technologies that exist on the web. With this lack of creation, people end up creating their videos, music, editing their photos, etc. on other websites, and then returning to Facebook to share. Facebook becomes a place for voyeurs to watch and engage with people through commenting on the posts. Those comments don't add a lot of depth to these interactions.

Google Me would have the power to become a portal of creation and deep interactions where one could create, share, comment, and/or respond through creating something of their own. All of their individual web applications have the power to do all of these, and more. I am thinking of the near real-time interactions of Google Wave and collaborations with Google Docs that could get pulled into an environment that more people are familiar with. It will be far easier to teach people how to use a Wave application in the confines of a Facebook-clone than showing them a different structured environment which causes more confusion. With the suite of applications available, creation can happen in any media - Blogger, Picasa, YouTube, Docs, Wave, GTalk, and with the addition of a cloud music website, audio could be created in the future, perhaps. 

All of this will most likely happen in several years from now (but one can dream). What is more likely to happen is that Google Me will become a portal for people when they use the internet. There will be options to synchronize their Google Me inbox with their GMail account, eliminating the need for two inboxes. Exact Target released a study showing that a small portion (11%) of American internet users check their Facebook before anything else - a number that is likely to climb (full graphic at Mashable. By having an option to sync the two mail accounts, users will stay within the realm of Google Me longer which is important for all the side advertisements. This feature would work well for Calendar, and Contacts, too.

In the near future, Google Me could change how we communicate, as well. Through the power of Google Voice, one could call a profile name, not a phone number, when browsing through the site on their iPhone/Android devices. This would eliminate any privacy concerns a user may have about sharing such information, while allowing people to reach out to them.

While the short-term focus of Google Me will presumably be about communication and catching up with Facebook, the long-term goals of the site should be about the creating-sharing dynamic while taking communication to a new level. Google has the suite of applications in order to do something of this magnitude, and I hope they take it in that direction.

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