Is Google About to Launch a Facebook Killer? Kevin Rose Says So.
Should we brace ourselves for another round of tech news headlines with the word "killer" in them? According to Digg founder Kevin Rose, Google is about to launch a social profile service called, aptly, "Google Me." Rose stated on Twitter earlier today that he heard a "huge rumor" from a "very credible source" that Google is about to unveil what is apparently a Facebook competitor, no other details forthcoming.
While this is strange for so many reasons (since when do startup CEOs break such high-stakes "rumors" on Twitter?), we'd have to say that, if this isn't some kind of weird account hijacking and the rumor turns out to be true, we're not surprised nor should Facebook be fazed -- Google Buzz was supposed to compete with Twitter and we all know how that turned out. We do however have a few questions, namely has Google given up on Brazilian social network Orkut? At this point it seems as though the search company is just throwing social networking ventures against a wall and seeing what sticks.
We've reached out to both Kevin Rose and the Mountain View-based Google for comment and will update this post if they respond.
Update 2:51 a.m PDT: Reader Chris Saad theorizes that "Google Me" is some sort of upgrade to the already existent Google Profiles feature, which might explain why Rick Klau, the developer who built Buzz, was recently tapped to overhaul Google Profiles.
Update 10:00 a.m PDT June 29th: A source close to the matter confirms to SF Weekly that "Google Me" is in fact real.
Follow us on Twitter at @alexia and @sfweekly.
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| Image via Højrebladet Komet. |
While this is strange for so many reasons (since when do startup CEOs break such high-stakes "rumors" on Twitter?), we'd have to say that, if this isn't some kind of weird account hijacking and the rumor turns out to be true, we're not surprised nor should Facebook be fazed -- Google Buzz was supposed to compete with Twitter and we all know how that turned out. We do however have a few questions, namely has Google given up on Brazilian social network Orkut? At this point it seems as though the search company is just throwing social networking ventures against a wall and seeing what sticks.
We've reached out to both Kevin Rose and the Mountain View-based Google for comment and will update this post if they respond.
Update 2:51 a.m PDT: Reader Chris Saad theorizes that "Google Me" is some sort of upgrade to the already existent Google Profiles feature, which might explain why Rick Klau, the developer who built Buzz, was recently tapped to overhaul Google Profiles.
Update 10:00 a.m PDT June 29th: A source close to the matter confirms to SF Weekly that "Google Me" is in fact real.
Follow us on Twitter at @alexia and @sfweekly.
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