Google Social Network 'Google Me' Coming This Fall
The rumors surrounding a possible social network from search giant Google have been swirling for quite some time. Google CEO Eric Schmidt put an end to them today by confirming the company indeed planned to launch a social network, tentatively called Google Me, sometime this Fall.
The announcement came at Google's Zeitgeist conference in Arizona, according to the Wall Street Journal. Google wants to go up directly against the current social networking king: Facebook .
Schmidt didn't go into detail, but he did mention that Google Me would go beyond the centralized hub seen in Facebook. Google will also focus on adding social features to existing Google services that can integrate into the whole of the social network. One example given was YouTube: Notices can be displayed when several friends all watch the same video. The Wall Street Journal reports that it would even integrate information from non-Google entities such as Twitter and Flickr.
One of the incentives behind creating a social network is the advertising revenue, which is Google's bread and butter. But there is also great potential in social gaming, as evidenced by the wild success of the Farmville game in Facebook. It should come as no surprise that Google has invested $100 million in Zynga, the company behind Farmville, ostensibly in preparation for adding gaming components to Google Me.
