Google is apparently working on a social networking website similar to Facebook called “Google Me”. Digg‘s founder Kevin Rose began the rumour via a tweet which has since been deleted. Adam D’Angelo (involved with Facebook early on, but founder of Quora now) confirmed that it will be modelled off of Facebook (unoriginal bastards). So, it will probably have a similar user interface and features (news feed, core applications, developer platform, etc.) It may incorporate their other properties such as Buzz, Profiles, and Docs, too; but I hope their careful about that: we don’t want another Orkut.
Adam D’Angelo also said that Google realized that Buzz didn’t quite take off as much as they’ve hoped for, and as a result, are going to build a full, first-class social network. Well, they’re very right about Buzz — Buzz is horrible — just a Twitter copy they used to try to get back in the social game.
Google will really have to do something amazing to win over people who are already used to and on Facebook. I for one, will not change my primary social network from Facebook because all my friend and family are on it, and I suspect that most people will have the same attitude. It will also be a pain in the ass to have yet another profile to maintain and login information to remember. But, I would consider using it if it was integrated well with Docs and had a very nice and clean user interface. I just hope it’s nothing like their Orkut.