Show

Google to unveil new social tool tomorrow

Andrew Lyle
09 February 2010 - 01:25
40 Comments
Liked this (2)

Google is set to unveil a brand new social networking application, that is all set to integrate with at least two Google products.  The new social network will go head-to-head to compete with the likes of Facebook and Twitter, bringing in a whole new competitor to the market.

According to details posted on The Wall Street Journal, "a new feature that makes it easier and faster for users of Gmail to view media and status updates.”  However, experts believe that the integration will go far beyond just Gmail. 

Google sent out invites mentioning "We'll be unveiling some new product innovations and we'd like to invite you to join us.”  With Google’s backing of owning YouTube, the largest search engine" Google.com, and various other products, all the tools for a successful product are in place.

Dave Winer, creator of RSS, compiled a list of must-have features for any company to compete and rival Twitter.  Winer’s first point would be reliability, something Twitter has struggled with time and time again, having troubles maintaining its servers. 

Winer also talks about enclosures, open architecture metadata, relationships with hardware vendors and removing the 140-character limit, a strict limitation that Twitter imposes, which can annoy users at times.  Winer also mentions that URL-shorteners are ‘hurting the web’, but Google has already entered the URL-shortening game, something that it will definitely use.

Google is set to announce their new product creation at 10am PST.

Comments (40)

  1. +dave164 - 09 February 2010 - 01:28

    If it was anything like Wave, i'm not excited.

  2. +Shadrack - 09 February 2010 - 01:32

    dave164 said,
    If it was anything like Wave, i'm not excited.

    I agree. I have a hard time seeing what the benefit of Google Wave is over something like a Wiki or even Google Docs.

    A friend and I are collaborating on a project, and are trying to use it. So far we both think it has a slick interface, but isn't anything revolutionary. We would get by with Google Docs (or something similar) or even email for that matter.

    Edit (Shadrack, 09 February 2010 - 01:33):

  3. vaximily - 09 February 2010 - 01:36

    Shadrack said,
    I agree. I have a hard time seeing what the benefit of Google Wave is over something like a Wiki or even Google Docs.

    A friend and I are collaborating on a project, and are trying to use it. So far we both think it has a slick interface, but isn't anything revolutionary. We would get by with Google Docs (or something similar) or even email for that matter.

    I think the missing key to Wave is actually Google Docs itself... real-time editing of full documents and spreadsheets is what will make Wave move forward.

  4. nav1sk - 09 February 2010 - 01:40

    I think that the main problem with Wave is, that the user base is rather small at the moment. However, I agree that it might not have any benefit over a Wiki.

  5. vaximily - 09 February 2010 - 01:46

    nav1sk said,
    I think that the main problem with Wave is, that the user base is rather small at the moment. However, I agree that it might not have any benefit over a Wiki.

    I don't see how you two are even comparing it to a Wiki, it's on a totally different playing field. The only similarity is that a Wiki can be modified by multiple users. There's nothing real-time or conversation-like about Wiki's, which is what Wave is all about.

  6. +Shadrack - 09 February 2010 - 02:16

    vaximily said,

    I don't see how you two are even comparing it to a Wiki, it's on a totally different playing field. The only similarity is that a Wiki can be modified by multiple users. There's nothing real-time or conversation-like about Wiki's, which is what Wave is all about.

    Lol, it is just a wiki page with an inbox, a different format, and is much easier to say. But the comparison is completely valid. You can have a conversation in the Discussion tab of a Wiki. Google's Wave is just smoother. It isn't revolutionary. Maybe evolutionary.

  7. vaximily - 09 February 2010 - 04:17

    Shadrack said,
    Lol, it is just a wiki page with an inbox, a different format, and is much easier to say. But the comparison is completely valid. You can have a conversation in the Discussion tab of a Wiki. Google's Wave is just smoother. It isn't revolutionary. Maybe evolutionary.

    Again, a Wiki is page-based, while Wave is conversation based. Wiki's are for the compilation of information for mass consumption, Wave is for sharing of information with a small group of people and has real-time collaboration. So I still think the comparison is invalid.

    I agree though, that Wave isn't "revolutionary" right now, but where it has the potential of going certainly could be.

    Edit (vaximily, 09 February 2010 - 04:19):

  8. +Shadrack - 09 February 2010 - 17:15

    vaximily said,

    Again, a Wiki is page-based, while Wave is conversation based. Wiki's are for the compilation of information for mass consumption, Wave is for sharing of information with a small group of people and has real-time collaboration. So I still think the comparison is invalid.

    I agree though, that Wave isn't "revolutionary" right now, but where it has the potential of going certainly could be.

    Well...I've used internal company Wiki's for exactly what you just described. Except that there was no "real-time" collaboration. But I'm sorry if I don't see how that one thing greatly changes things. Agree to disagree?

    Edit (Shadrack, 09 February 2010 - 17:19):

  9. SMELTN - 09 February 2010 - 01:32

    I bet it IS going to be wave. They are just bringing it out of beta for everyone

  10. vaximily - 09 February 2010 - 01:36

    SMELTN said,
    I bet it IS going to be wave. They are just bringing it out of beta for everyone

    Wave has nothing to do with Social Networking...

  11. +chevyordeath - 09 February 2010 - 01:33

    Meh.. facebook is good enough for me. I guess it's always good to have competition though. Then again, it's nice to find all of your friends in the same place. I guess we'll just have to wait for tomorrow.

  12. Raa - 09 February 2010 - 01:35

    Any invites for this early event? Or is this press only?

  13. vaximily - 09 February 2010 - 01:37

    What I really don't understand is why the author focus's so much on Twitter. Twitter is a dieing breed and really isn't "Social Networking". Facebook is what Google has to compete with (there's nothing Twitter can do that Facebook can't, but the opposite can't be said).

  14. Tom W - 09 February 2010 - 01:39

    vaximily said,
    What I really don't understand is why the author focus's so much on Twitter. Twitter is a dieing breed and really isn't "Social Networking". Facebook is what Google has to compete with (there's nothing Twitter can do that Facebook can't, but the opposite can't be said).

    Twitter is hardly dying. You can't search across Facebook as it's not open. With Twitter you can search real time the reactions to major news events or local events and find reactions and commentary. It's a powerful tool.

  15. vaximily - 09 February 2010 - 01:48

    Tom W said,
    Twitter is hardly dying. You can't search across Facebook as it's not open. With Twitter you can search real time the reactions to major news events or local events and find reactions and commentary. It's a powerful tool.

    I'm pretty sure losing almost 30% of your user base in a single month qualifies as dieing. (http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/12/02/the-truth-about-twitter-usage) Sorry, but I quite frankly don't give a **** if the world knows my 140-character reaction to the latest terrorist bombing. That's for my family and friends.

  16. Baked - 09 February 2010 - 02:01

    Tom W said,

    Twitter is hardly dying. You can't search across Facebook as it's not open. With Twitter you can search real time the reactions to major news events or local events and find reactions and commentary. It's a powerful tool.

    I thought Twit was already dead lol....

    Seriously FB owns it hard 350 million people what's twitters base ?

  17. vaximily - 09 February 2010 - 02:06

    Baked said,
    I thought Twit was already dead lol....

    Seriously FB owns it hard 350 million people what's twitters base ?

    Agreed, although FB mostly owns it because it's the "best available", not because it's what people actually want. I am sick of their ****ty interface "upgrades" that continue to push "features" that people hate.

    ***I'm looking at you, News / Live feed***

  18. Jebadiah - 09 February 2010 - 05:08

    vaximily said,

    I'm pretty sure losing almost 30% of your user base in a single month qualifies as dieing. (http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/12/02/the-truth-about-twitter-usage) Sorry, but I quite frankly don't give a **** if the world knows my 140-character reaction to the latest terrorist bombing. That's for my family and friends.

    I think the ~30% drop is in the number of visitors to twitter.com and not the overall usage of twitter as a service.

  19. vaximily - 09 February 2010 - 06:13

    Jebadiah said,
    I think the ~30% drop is in the number of visitors to twitter.com and not the overall usage of twitter as a service.

    True, but I'm pretty sure 30% of their website users didn't suddenly up and decide to move to another client all at once, it's not like the clients are new. So a big portion of that number is people that abandoned the service.

  20. +Northgrove - 09 February 2010 - 10:55

    Tom W said,

    Twitter is hardly dying. You can't search across Facebook as it's not open. With Twitter you can search real time the reactions to major news events or local events and find reactions and commentary. It's a powerful tool.

    True, I think Twitter won't actually lose many corporate users. It's a great advertising tool, and a tool for companies to communicate with their user base in a "hip", modern, and direct way.

    However, I think Twitter will keep losing regular users to Facebook, as I think it has much more powerful social networking features. I wouldn't even know where to begin, but user groups with discussion boards, fan pages, arranging meetings, and so on. Stuff Twitter doesn't even begin to scratch, and I'm not sure the owners even intend to.

    I really, really, hope they'll do something clever as a Facebook competitor, because that site is so overloaded nowadays and quite buggy. Their own web service for this with their massive server backing, along with perhaps Facebook Connect support to ease the transition, would be interesting.

    Edit (Northgrove, 09 February 2010 - 10:58):
Please Log In or Register to post a comment.