Tuesday, February 09, 2010

FT.com / Media - Google prepares Facebook assault

Another real-time run for Google – I wonder how the Google Wave team feels about this Gmail role expansion

The search company is preparing to announce new features for Gmail that would extend the capabilities of the internet-based e-mail service to mirror some aspects of the fast-growing social networking site, according to a person familiar with its plans.

However, earlier Google efforts to establish a presence in social networking have failed to gain much traction and analysts said that the company was still likely to find it difficult to turn the tables on Facebook with its latest plan.

[…]

According to a report on the tech website TechCrunch, Facebook is planning to upgrade this messaging service to compete directly with Gmail and other internet-based mail systems.

Google’s decision to exploit the heavily used Gmail service as the basis for its latest assault on the social networking business partly reflects the failure of earlier stand-alone efforts to enter the sector.

Its Orkut networking service, though launched before Facebook, has failed to gain a mass following in most parts of the world, despite success in Brazil, and its acquisition of Twitter rival Jaiku ended in failure after it scrapped development of the service.

FT.com / Media - Google prepares Facebook assault

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