Confirmed: Google Me coming this Fall

Why are so many people expecting this to be a "killer" when they have failed to gain much traction with their other attempts to compete with Facebook/Twitter. I don't know many people using Orkut, Wave, Buzz, Picasa, etc.

Google doesn't want to be social, they just want "social graph" data--two very different things. It's why they've failed.

Google needs to offer a compelling reason for people to transfer their profiles and hang around Google services in order to get the "social" part somewhat right. And then Google will succeed in getting the data they value most: the things you explicitly "like" or favorite, in this case,(with a bright yellow star). And that's where I think Freebase comes in--or so I hope.

We can only hope that Google Millenium Edition lives up to the awesome legacy left behind by Windows ME.

I have mixed feeling about this.... yet another attempt by Google to get social.

I read an article somewhere else that the reason Google doesn't get social is because of its "geek" culture (no offense to fellow geeks, I'm just quoting the original article). Because Google is so technology focused, it sometimes loses its grip on human interaction.

I can't say I'm totally agreeing with that article but it does make some sense. Wave for example, technologically excellent and revolutionary, but really hard to use for a non-tech person.

I think it is interesting that Google said that Google Me will not be something that is standalone but suggests they are learning the lessons from the past.

Mashable had a good article on the demise of Wave and the lessons that can be learned (http://mashable.com/2010/08/06/google-wave-lessons/)

Lesson 1: Keep Expectations in Check They have announced it now for Fall, make sure they release in fall and if it is private beta, make sure that does not go for longer than 1-2 months. Keep the media in check

Lesson 2: Make Your Product Clear They clearly need to state what this is and what is not. E.g. it is not Facebook, it is not Twitter it is a way to add more social functions and collaboration to your existing Google services

Lesson 3: Launch When Ready Linked to point 1 but it has to have a good level of quality at launch.

Lesson 4: Have Real Value If it replicates things I can get already from Facebook or Twitter it is not going to add value.

If it does allow me to get the best results from my private services (e.g. Facebook, twitter, Google reader) like Greplin but with instant search directly from my Google window that would be valuable.

If it gives me Rapportive but in a way that works in Gmail awesome. If it gives me Wisesync but in a way that works in Chromium also valuable.

If it lets me play video directly from my Gmail inbox or "like" something within my inbox or search and "stream" this to my social feeds

If it gives me a feature like mysixthsense within search or google reader or adds in Postrank as a google lab feature to inbox and search these would also be valuable to me.

I'm hesitant about the social layers search stuff. Honestly, the data I put on the web is personal, and it deserves its own respect. Its not just a statistic. If my friend wants to know what I think about something they can email me.

I think it would be a brilliant move by Google to combine their separate services into something similar to Facebook. Google has all the parts, like video (Youtube), pics (Picasa), mini-blogs (Buzz), chat, and e-mail. They do all of this better than Facebook, and add Google Voice on top of it. It's just natural for them to start a social network that integrates all of these different parts.

I wonder what we actually want from "social". I know that I don't want to subscribe to some kind of friend spam merged with regular spam from advertisers or share "stuff" with people in my address book. That's totally useless for me and bloating all kinds of Google services with it will be annoying.

What I do want is collaboration, ad hoc collaboration, project based collaboration, etc. I want to connect and integrate my data with that of others with less friction than today. Google should go after Microsoft Office and leave Facebook to Zuckerberg's "dumb fucks".

I wonder if Facebook will be the new Netscape and this will be the new Internet Explorer 4.

I wonder if Google Me will implement some search sharing elements and socialize the Google Search experience instead of offering another standard social network. A current web project of mine delves into this, but Google obviously has the resources to push this to the mainstream, similar to Google Instant, and make it much more valuable to users from the onset. It would be more risky than another standard social network, but much more relevant to their core search service. It's also interesting to speculate whether or not Google Me may be the social element around Google OS. We'll just have to wait and see.

Well, I hope they don't automatically sign me up and add my contacts from my GMail account like they did with Buzz.

Partly because that's annoying and mainly because I don't want to belong to another social network.

This will be a good test of whether Google has learned anything from their previous failures - Wave, Buzz, etc. Both were excellent products technically and both failed to take off. I'm particularly sad about Buzz because it is much much better technically and feature wise than Twitter.

The problem is, I think the key to it is going to be something they'll never do - lack of integration. They have to totally utterly separate this from search and gmail. If they mix these things then it'll be yet another product where the public is confused and uncertain about what it is, what it does, and why it does it. It has to be simple - the way the original Google was simpler than any of its competitors. They have to remember their roots here. Do it simple. Do it incredibly well. Make it clean and unambiguous.

It's hard to pinpoint when, but I think at some point last year I stopped viewing Google as "special" and started considering them just one of many companies.

To me, Google was special because all their early products were made to solve very hard problems that me, among many other people had: search sucked, webmail sucked, etc.

That Google is dead, I'm afraid. Wave, Buzz, and now (probably) Google Me.. all products created with shady goals, terrible execution, disdain for privacy. Most importantly, they are products that NO ONE FUCKING NEEDS.

I'm still continuing using Gmail and Google for search because they are the best (although DDG is close, and I'm rooting for them). But I'm definitely looking elsewhere for anything close to innovation.

/rant

Prediction: privacy nightmare.

I misread that, thinking it was odd that Google would fall to copying Microsoft, and surprising they would copy Windows Me.

Reading about the product left me slightly less impressed.

Facebook already has social covered, and I've pretty much stopped using it. Buzz does not - Google don't get it, and they don't get that they don't get it. If Google Me was an upgrade to a desktop application, I probably wouldn't bother to install it. As it is, I'll look forward to having my cheese moved again.

Am I the only one who thinks that the idea that Google needs to "get into social" is a big mistake and a bad move?

They're being duped into spending a lot of time on energy on something where it isn't clear that they'll get the equivalent value back.

They already dominate advertising. What else is there to gain here? It's like Microsoft feeling like they need to create a competing search engine. The game has already been won.

I really use google just for search and their ads which I find useful and I often click more than any other kind of ad.

I don't like where this is headed.

I'm really interested to see how this goes. It's been a long time since Google released a "killer service." I'm really hoping Me is more than just a Facebook clone, and that they learned some lessons from Buzz (and Wave?).

this is probably going to to the way of Buzz. they'll screw it up, it'll be intrusive, privacy will be violated.

besides, how much more "social" can google get? someone at google is trying too hard.

I'm not sure most people would want their searching habits to be 'social' in that plenty of people want to Google for stuff in their own time without anyone else knowing about it.

This sounds like a good move from Google, do something akin to Facebook instant personalization in their other products, rather than creating the next facebook/myspace/bebo clone.

I sincerely hope that it will be horrible so that I'm not tempted to hand over even more of my personal life to Google.

No offence to the people building it.

Poor naming: "Google me" is already a verb phrase. If the overlap was intentional, I don't think it was wise.

What a terrible name. Any relation to Dr. Evil's Mini Me?

This is exactly what I don't want, more stuff forced onto me through my Gmail account. Stop using Gmail as a trojan horse please Google. They should just make a standalone clone Facebook that can integrate with Google's services, if desired. I really disliked the way Buzz was forced onto me and I really don't like the way that the new chat box won't go away and you have to manually hide each contact. Just buy Twitter and use their talent, you've got the cash and it's not really in Google's genetics for social.