So, is Google Building a Facebook Rival Or Not? [Google]

Facebook’s former-CTO confirmed Google was building a Facebook ” killer,” perpetual rumormonger Kevin Rose tweeted it’d be called ” Google Me” -but Google has said (again) that ” we’re not working on a social network platform.”

Going on, their head of mobile product development, Hugo Barra, said that they’re not ” working on a social network platform that’s just going to be another social network platform.” So, they’re building one more special social networking site?

” We do think that social is an ingredient for fulfillment for any app going forward, search and advertising being probably the smartest two examples that i’d mention. So that’s how we’re puzzling over the issue.”

Google and Facebook were at loggerheads for months now, but especially in recent weeks over users’ address books. Google initially blocked Facebook users from with the ability to import their Gmail contacts find friends on the positioning, over Facebook’s lack of generosity with their data. Google’s now relented -but that doesn’t mean they’re feeling warmer towards Zuckerberg and his cronies.

While Google could be treading on Facebook’s turf with a social networking site (though you can say Google’s ” big in Brazil” site Orkut came first, launching just multiple weeks before Facebook back in 2004), Facebook is declared to be readying a ” Gmail killer” for next week. My poor, poor head. [ Reuters and TechCrunch ]

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This post is tagged: address books, forward search, mobile product, network platform, social networking site