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Was Google+ a fake rumor, a misleading evolutionary product update, or really a new social network from Google? Was this the thing Orkut was reportedly working on 18 months ago?

25 Answers
Chris Cinelli
Update on June 2011: The result of months of hard work  is out: Google+. Welcome to a new world.

Google Me will not be necessarly a new social network but a way to  leverage the real social network that Google users already have and  integrate in what Google already offer.

 GoogleMe will:
  • not use the word Friend for the people in the social graph. The  user would be able to define how specific partitions of his/her contacts  are called. These partitions will be generically called groups or circles. There will be some predefined groups (ex:  family, colleagues, etc). They are similar to the Facebook lists but  different in how easy, clear and immediate interacting with them is.
  • have deep care about privacy to gain user trust. The user will not  get surprises interacting with his contacts.
  • enable the user to have more than one identity. Sharing and  conversations scope will be limited to the specific group of people  linked to the specific identity. Interaction with a group will be not be  available to the other groups. Content may be "public" in a group of  people but not for others.
  • make sure that the user clearly understands the audience of the  content that he/she is sharing and the persistence of the message.
  • let the user will be able to do some actions anonymously. Ex  rating products.
  • facilitate the interaction with contacts with strong ties vs weak  ties vs temporary ties. Ex on Google chat the user can select to be  visible only to my strong ties and invisible for all the rest.
  • be integrated with all the Google products (gmail, Google docs,  Picasa, Google checkout, Google products, Google voice and SEARCH etc). The user will be able to  share a Google spreadsheet with the group "Work colleagues" for example.  Shared content will be indexed and accessible during a Google search  (if relevant). It will be able to deliver the message in the way  preffered by the receiver of the message (ex: on the steam, by email, or  by text message through Google voice.
  • be able to learn about people relationships and influence on each  other regarding specific subjects and prioritize stream/feed according  to that. Ex: My colleague Patty travel a lot and is the best person to  get information about place to visit or where to book the cheapest  flights. When I am searching for a place to visit, she may be  automatically inquired and the system will make sure that I receive  suggestions by Patty on that subject. Google Me will provided tools for  business to act on those influences (like an Adwords on steroids).
Note: All the above comes from  articles available online, conversion with people, observations on what  Google is already doing and my inferences on what would be strategic and  logical for Google to be build based on those.
5.7k Views · 99 Upvotes
Adam D'Angelo 
It's really a new, high-priority product, with a large number of people working on it. It's called Emerald Sea internally.
3.3k Views · 341 Upvotes
Sergei Burkov
"Google has assembled a team of engineers to work on social networking,  led by two executives who worked on Buzz — Vic Gundotra, vice president  for  engineering responsible for mobile applications, and Bradley  Horowitz, a vice president for product management overseeing Google  Apps."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/1...
427 Views · 4 Upvotes
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