14 DAY TRIAL // The big rumor over the weekend in the web world has been Google Me, a supposed revamp of Google Profiles which would turn the product into a Facebook competitor. Rumors are common in the web business world and they vary from the ludicrous to the rock solid, but most of them don’t come from the CEOs of high profile companies. This one does, though, as it was Kevin Rose, CEO and founder of Digg, that cited a “very credible source” in saying Google is building a Facebook competitor.
“Ok, umm, huge rumor: Google to launch facebook competitor very soon ‘Google Me’, very credible source,” he said on Twitter this Saturday. He’s not exactly known for starting false or unsubstantiated rumors, so many now believe that Google is clearly working on something.
However, others have speculated that Google Me might have more to do with an upgraded Google Profiles rather than a new product. This is further backed by the fact that Google’s Rick Klau, who built Buzz, is now working on Profiles. Since Buzz is already highly integrated with Profiles, it would make sense that the product would get an overhaul as it hasn’t received much attention in recent years.
There’s no doubt that Google is feeling threatened by Facebook and the company’s repeated failure to build a popular social tool only makes it worse. Google’s latest attempt, Buzz, hasn’t proven too popular especially after the privacy fiasco that mired its launch.
Google already owns a social network, Orkut, but it too has failed to catch on except in a couple of markets, Brazil and India. And if Facebook’s words are to be believed, Orkut has been overtaken by the mammoth social network in those markets as well. Until we get more details, it’s hard to say what Google Me really means, but just launching social network after social network and seeing what flies doesn’t seem like the best strategy.