"Google already has so much data on you, depending on how many Google apps you already use."

Call me a little old school, but I think like my Paulie in Goodfellas. He didn't want anyone hearing what he said and he didn't want anyone hearing what was said to him.

I use Google for search and Yahoo for apps. Imagine any one entity knowing who I am AND what I search for. Ewwww.

You could always just search through a proxy. Am I missing something?

If you're logged in to (for example) gmail in one tab, and then you search in another tab, google knows who you are via a cookie. You would have to both search through a proxy and suppress the cookie.

I always log in, check my mail, and log out...

Privacy issues aside, this would be awesome. If I'm reading this properly, this isn't just Orkut 2.0 -- it's essentially building a "social networking" API for every part of Google. I dunno about you, but an app that integrates with GMail somehow sounds more useful than your typical Facebook app.

As scary as it may seem to some of us, I can't wait to see it come to fruition.

Social networking is but an AOL paradigm. Yahoo and Google and Microsoft all have the elements of a social networking but chose not to pursue it, or half-assed it over the year, but I have more faith in Google being able to pull it off and succeeding than the other companies or even Facebook. But then again, the point of Facebook was never to care about social networking, they aspire to be an advertising powerhouse.

The point of Facebook was always to care about social networking, and they still haven't public announced an aspiration to be an advertising powerhouse.

That's ridiculous, they care about "social graphs". If I'm not somebody's friend I can't view their profile. I don't meet people on Facebook like I do with any other service or in real life, I simply establish an alternative identity and throw all my pictures and mundane details into it.

As for their aspirations of being in advertising not being announced? And?

You're arguing semantics mostly. The bottom line is, Facebook is doing a piss poor job of being an advertising marketplace, and a pretty good job of being a social network.

It took Google what, 4-5 years to finally come out with AdWords and begin their powerhouse ascent?

Give FB time, they'll get there.

I think this is going to change very soon. They're close to unveiling a targeted ad system. As smart as AdSense is (targeting ads to content of a page), targeting them to the specific preferences of a user is even more compelling.

I hope you're right, and I hope it's awesome. My best guess, however, is even if they've got such a system, it's sure to be immature and hence not very compelling. Facebook doesn't have near the advertising talent Google does, so I wouldn't be so quick to compare their so-far-nonexistent ad system to the behemoth that is AdSense.

I wasn't necessarily saying that it would be an AdSense killer, just that it could be an equally interesting take on targeted ads. I definitely agree that it'll take time.

Frankly, google doesn't have much of a chance. They are desperate in this space. This is evidenced by them blindly pumping ~billion into myspace. Orkut is a flop, except in brazil. Meanwhile facebook continues to lay waste to the industry.

People keep passing around that little story about Orkut is only popular in Brazil but never go beyond that. Orkut has a 68 million users, it's not Myspace or Facebook numbers, but a flop? Jesus Tapdancing Christ, when was your last project scaling at 68 million?

And who's to say that Orkut is even Google's response to Facebook. It was an acquisition, if anything I see it as a technology buy. They wanted to know how a social network would operate and function and they bought something that works in the International market to test it.

But I still think my point still stands, social networking is just a paradigm. It is not separate service or platform, it is just how features are organized. And almost every feature Facebook has, GYM has. The only innovation Facebook ever done was come out with poke. But then again, I've been pinging or yt?-ing my friends since AOL 2.1.

68 million is larger than Facbeook, just so you know.

But Facebook generates more pageviews per account.

Orkut was an internal Google project and launched a month before Facebook.

When you say "internal Google project", do you mean hired a guy who used code from his previous company and slapped the name "Orkut" on it?

Via Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut

"In late June 2004, Affinity Engines filed suit against Google, claiming that Orkut Buyukkokten and Google based Orkut on inCircle code.[ambiguous] Originally the Orkut community was felt to be elitist, because its membership was by invitation only. At the end of July 2004 Orkut surpassed the 1,000,000 member mark and by the following September it had surpassed 2,000,000. As of August 2007, the number of members equated to over 67,000,000 users."

I did not know that. I had thought it was an external buy.

Orkut is also the dominant English social network in most parts of Asia and the Middle East (although Facebook is becoming increasingly popular).

Yeah, I still say it is a flop. Any company with google's resources, should have been able to leverage them much better than they have. Also, if they really thought they would be able to build something compelling, why would they pay murdoch and co all the money they did instead of just building their own/

1. Leveraging means putting it in your face. Anything on Google.com right now will gain quite a lot of leveraging (except for Gpay, I don't know what kind of conversion was attained when that link was on the front page). Google has made it a mission to avoid that because people everywhere will instantly complain and bitch when little notes start popping up asking you to join Orkut.

2. As for paying all that money to News Corp? Maybe the same reason Microsoft is paying all that money to Facebook? They're paying a giant game of expensive keepaway.

Well, as for point number 1, thats what I mean...they are desperate. If they can't leverage current resources and a 200B valuation, how the hell are they going to beat facebook. Oh, and by the way, once FB/MSFT decides to make a push in Brazil, orkut can kiss their mkt share goodbye. Facebook is just that much better.