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Google has something really intelligent here. Look by a few recent, subtle moves. Google adds AIM functionality into GTALK, so you can use either Google Talk or your AIM ID. Google adds Friends to Reader, meaning that anyone with a Google history can share knowledge back and forth with Google Reader. Google slips profiles into the “Friends” action, but it’s clear that that will go cross-account. So here’s how that plays back quickly:

• GTalk+AIM = rapid communications (IM).
• Gmail = newsletter platform. Simple, easy, searchable, plays with POP3,in corp configuration, etc.
• Google Reader= news in, meaning the “ears” and learning of your knowledge organization.

That’s the easy game. But wait. What’s a social network for? whether you reply anything other than “a place to capture and corral attention so that companies can advertise against it,” you’re being a little altruistic. So, whether you look at that, you’ve got the following things tying together in a potential larger social network. Google has the following potential captures of your date:

• newsletter
• Instant messenger
• Docs
• Pictures (don’t forget Picasa’s still alive and well).
• Calendar
• News
• Pages (not just PAGES, but the new Knol
  that fights Wikipedia)
• Search
• Maps

You know I could go on and on and on, right?

So, with Google having the potential to keep you longer and longer on their court, you’ve got some really prime real estate for advertising, which is how Google’s owned the Net for the last several years.

When Facebook started to compose a difference by 2007, and humans started hiding inside the very closed walls, Google came up with that, a way to do a lot of the same social features without making us dig up our Orkut history IDs.

In fact, think about it, your social network is your contact list. No invitations essential. That’s the coup de grace. You’re already bought in, at least insofar as Google can help you convert your friends to your new social network: your inbox.

Shoot holes in that. Add your own ideas. Where do you think that goes?

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Orginal post by chrisbrogan