Not a clone, but they've been moving the chess pieces around for awhile now, adding bits to each service to tie it all together and grow it socially. The most popular search engine, and a free (email) account are the foundations. - Tinfoil 2.0

they need it imho to clearify their social graph informations they have due to the google accounts (and mail) - Andreas Klinger

and as the future social network is called internet they dont need to clone fb - just to have the correct socialgraph info (all imho) - Andreas Klinger

it's about time they get a decent, real, uberFriendFeed social, ... other than the old http://Orkut.com, popular namely in Brasil .. they have audience, visitors, and that is what really counts ... - pb:

My only concern is that my profile name would be the same as my email address. But I do agree, this could possibly make Google the 1 ton gorilla in the room, as if it wasn't content with being the 800lb gorilla in the room. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

yeo Facebook clone, it is what yahoo wanted to do in turning their email into a social network but never did, Google thing is gona be much more it is gona be location aware using google latitude, plus friend connect. - Ali

@derek they will, but proceeding in a very misterious way... i wrote about it yesterday, in last months seems like: 1) All Social Network have his final plan and a lot of pieces come together piece by piece OR 2) They run, copy and try to take best of competitor without a global vision of the future ..... - CantorJF

@Mike Yeah that bothered me too, having my Gmail address as the profile name. - Sally Church

Lol, i just tweeted you about a post i did about this. "Google are building a social network under our very noses. It could be bigger and better than Facebook." http://is.gd/syn9 - Zee.

It's opt-in, so nobody is forced to do anything, and GOOG won't do anything if you do not condone it. How many profiles does one need? - coldbrew

Google is an extremely cold blooded competitor. They would build the most powerful strategic nuclear weapon and you wouldn't even know till it hits you with one. - Arvind

C'mon Robert, I told you what we're working on - open standards for making the web social. These are the same profiles used in Friend Connect, they just now have nicer URLs than before. Read http://bit.ly/OSqa for an overview - Kevin Marks

Chris Messina had a great article up about it all, comparing the two. Check out http://factoryjoe.com for his comparison - Jesse Stay

Kevin: I know that. I just wanted to have a conversation about this. The fact that you added onto it is EXACTLY why I started it. So people could hear directly from Google about it and now your answer will always be in the search engine here too. :-) - Robert Scoble

"what is Google going to do with my profile info?" - They turned mine into a newt, but it got better. - John Craft

I guess its quite a move for their mission to organize the worlds information. Ie people search or recommending stuff based on your profile. They could do that without a google profile of course. - Michiel Sikkes

So, Scoble, you are orchestrating 'conversations'? Sounds kind of manipulative, but at least your upfront about it. [EDIT: Do you always have ulterior motives?] - coldbrew

havn't read the whole thread, but Google isn't after Facebook, Google will spend money to buy FF cause FF is more open, and more compliant with Greader and Gprofile (notice that Google profile gather service like FF), you can add your service in your google profile, the second step will be to agregate those service, in Greader sharing and comment on feed is there , so there is 80% that google will make a bid on FF before the end of the year. (but will FF sell to google?) I may say No. - abdellah

Conversation baiting lol :) I agree that's a pretty fine line to walk. I think abdellah's point is an interesting one. not sure if it makes sense in the timeline that you gave, but perhaps eventually. have the friendfeed founders ever addressed the potential for being acquired? - Frankie Warren

coldbrew: my goal for life is to have an interesting conversation every day. By doing it here it brings out all the data about a topic that one needs to search for it later on, too. I see my role as sort of a talk show host. abdellah: I believe friendfeed and facebook are on a collision course. Why? Because the money is in search. Friendfeed has a much better search engine, facebook has the users. Which service will have the users AND the search engine first? Facebook. But if Google bought friendfeed ... - Robert Scoble

THAT would be very interesting indeed! Because Google has the users, too. - Robert Scoble

I would prefer that google bought Friendfeed instead of Twitter. :) - Frode Stenstrøm

Robert: Right, but as a "talk show host" i don't think your goal should be to sensationalize to spark conversation... granted you wouldnt have had a response from someone within google setting the record straight, but i dont think you want to sacrifice credibility in the process, right? just my opinion. - Frankie Warren

Frankie: it's not sensational at all. It's a legitimate question which deserves conversation. How is Google going to get into Facebook/friendfeed is a REAL question for our industry. - Robert Scoble

Frode: me too. Plus Google would get four of its superstars back that way. Twitter's technology isn't good enough, either. It'd need to be rewritten from scratch for Google. Friendfeed's is a much better code base. Of course since it was written by ex-Google superstars it'll fit right into Google's infrastructure. - Robert Scoble

Of course. Since Yahoo already tried the same thing.... - Mike Shields

Robert: i agree, but i dont think you believed they were building "a facebok clone" as kevin marks previously told you what they were attempting to accomplish? maybe im overreacting or just don't know the way things work quite yet :) - Frankie Warren

imagine this: Google + Friendfeed vs Twitter + facebook + Microsoft :) that would be a battle. - Frankie Warren

major bummer for me is that i use a google domain. the public gmail account has the shorturl i want to use on my g-domain profile and i can't use it. essentially, the gmail account is "squatting" on my shorturl and there's no way to stop that. makes the google profile kinda worthless for me. - MikeAmundsen

Their email client is already LIKE a twitter anyway... - tojfs7931

I really like this idea: I already use GMail, GReader, Picasa, etc. so it makes sense to have all of those services baked into my online presence. Facebook still has the bells in whistles (gah! - I don't care which 5 items you wouldn't leave the house without) but so didn't MySpace back a few years ago -- remember myspace?? - Brian Graves

nicholas - what we need is something like FriendFeed + SocialThing +Ping.FM and you'd have your google reader for social networks. - Bill Rawlinson

Googles purchase of Friendfeed would save the service I think. Twitter is now beeing mentioned in newspapers and TV everyday here, and is getting the kind of publicity that facebook got at the beginning. No one I speak to have heard about Friendfeed, but everyone that I show it to loves it. I think Twitter can stand on its own, but Friendfeed needs a larger userbase. I fear what Facebook would do to Friendfeed if they got hold of the company,. - Frode Stenstrøm