A Hint of What Google's Social Network Might Look Like

I understand that Google is big on defensive patents, but this one seems over the top. Here is the abstract of the patent application Google has filed -- it has lots of big words, but doesn't seem to describe anything that is in any way non-obvious. Ditto for the claims...

"Hubs for social interaction via electronic devices are described.

In one aspect, a data processing device includes a display screen displaying a social interaction hub, the social interaction hub including a collection of records. Each record includes a counterparty identifier identifying a counterparty of a past social interaction event, a mode indicium identifying a mode by which the past social interaction event with the counterparty occurred, and a collection of mode indicia each identifying a mode by which a future, outgoing social interaction event with the counterparty can occur.

The counterparty identifier, the mode indicium, and the collection of mode indicia are associated with one another in the records of the social interaction hub."

The full text of the patent application is here: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sec...

Is this old? Isn’t that Buzz?

I’m being sarcastic, but there is nothing new to see here!