Google Profiles: Weak
Published by Rodney Rumford December 17th, 2007 in Facebook, OpenSocial.
Google really really really wants to be a social network; or at least try to get into the middle of the space.
Google’s first attempt: Vaporware OpenSocial. Launched with much fanfare it hs proven a point of frustration and disappointment to the application developer community (it’s target audience).
Google’s second attempt. Google Profiles: Weak. In what appears to be a move inspired by Facebook; Google has just started testing out a profile concept this weekend. It allows you to fill out a google mini profile. Yawn. Yikes! Scary!
This might just top the privacy concerns that facebook Beacon’s firestorm created. Anyone at Moveon.org paying attention to the “Do No Evil” Google? For a very detailed analysis of how Google Profiles works on Google; and the potential implications, check out the great post at VentureBeat.com
Google Profiles tries to figure out who its users’ friends are. I looks like it does this be looking at who you exchange messages with and determining them as your friend. Trust me, this is way scarier than beacon could ever be. At least on facebook; I determine by a discreet approval process who my friends on facebook are.
Could Google get a cohesive social strategy going anytime soon? Possibly. But like many of Google’s products; they lay in a very disconnected and languishing state and the pace of innovation is painfully slow. Nothing like the breakneck pace of innovation that we see from social network companies like facebook.
Technorati Tags: google, google profiles, facebook
Great post Rodney. I had read your first post on Google Profiles and was quite turned off to find that its still vaporware-esque. Now to hear of the security issues involved–it looks like it trumps Fb Beacon hands-down!