Google just announced “Friend Connect,” which is a powerful example of how the company can be viewed as being evil. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/google-wants-to-help-web-sites-...

Right on the heels of MySpace & Facebook’s announcements to work on data portability and open up information about contacts to users, Google comes with a MyBlogLog approach to making the Web more social. Yahoo’s MyBlogLog hasn’t been as successful as it could or should be http://mashable.com/2008/05/12/friend-connect-and-the-end-of-the-fragmen..., but Google has the potential to make a lot of headway with this project. Let’s forget that its own social network project – Orkut – became more popular in Brazil than the U.S., let’s talk instead about OpenSocial and how Google is getting developers to create social applications across multiple Websites (certainly “Open Social” and “Friend Connect” will work together in some grand scheme).

All it takes is for Google to convert search engine users, news searchers, blog searchers, and video searchers into connectors. There’s the possibility of launching some of this with YouTube capabilities, and then there’s Google Reader where contacts are already sharing RSS reads and making notes on them in a FriendFeed like fashion for address book contacts. With Gmail, Gtalk, the possibilities for these open social tools are endless. But it’s even greater for small Web publishers — the ones who need traffic most in order to boost those Google Adsense impressions. Bringing more social tools to these sites will only increase Google’s bottom line and true business — advertising.

Google does appear to be getting involved in everything?

"What's next?"

Mark Salinas

Anything that can make social networking easier and (most importantly) more organized is a good thing. I prefer to only have one networking account because of the lack of time and energy I have to update multiple profiles with the same content.

I suppose if this really took hold, and Google was powering 90% of communities within ordinary websites so they could do demographic targeting of ads, 90% of all contextual ads, trafficking 90% of display ads via their new acquisition -- DART -- then Google's concentration of power will become really overwhelming. That's a lot of maybes. But something to think about.

I think Google should get back to its bread and butter: colonizing Mars...check out project Virgle...http://www.google.com/virgle/

Like Rachel said, the idea of having a single portal to access multiple online networks sounds great for users -- in theory. In reality, trying to standardize these disparate properties will be buggy at best. What is the incentive for sites like MySpace and Facebook to work together with Google, when they're all trying to monetize through ads or sponsored widgets? Would they work out some revenue share model? Sorry. I can't see it happening.

I love paradox. I believe in the human condition and have every confidence that Google's fooray into anything will produce more evil than good, particularly when "evil" and "good" are left open to interpretation. Google is already a social network it's self with significant influence and market share well above its closest competitors. Google has expanded from being the medium entity through which internet transactions occur to the very process of conducting those transactions, as in "google" this and "google" that. Seems quite natural that the next evolutionary step would be to do for social networking what Google is doing and has already done with everything else it approaches. I think it simply comes down to world domination. Someday, everything will be Google (or Sears, or Toyota, or Taco Bell, or. . . ).

Social Networking is a SOCIAL phenomenon, not a technological phenomenon. I agree that every single company out there at the end is always tempted to world dominance and this is not different with Google. However, social networks, collaboration and web 2.0 are social driven phenomena, specially driven by Web Natives, a generation that does three things as naturally as we use the remote control. They collaborate, multitask and above all they do not recognize hierarchy. The main effect is that everyone that decides to try to dominate their space will not be able to prevent this generation from simply going around. They have the tools already available, they know how to use them very well and they have the ability to enhance them, or create new ones by collaboration. Let Google or anyone else try...