Google is trying harder than ever to be Facebook. Gmail and YouTube users aren’t happy. [Slate]

From a timely Google reality check

"Google faces a real problem in trying to “socialize” its properties that Facebook doesn’t. In the case of Gmail, Google Drive, and Picasa, user data is fundamentally private in a way that it isn’t on Facebook. People know not to post anything too secret on Facebook or Twitter, even just to a friends list, because Facebook has become a person’s public or semi-public face on the Internet. Gmail is home to your private life, and every time Google announces that your private life is now going to have a public face, people feel annoyed and violated.
There has been, until now, a general acceptance of the automated process of Gmail scanning your messages and generating advertising based on them. But if your private Gmail activity increasingly overlaps with your public Google Plus activity—to the point of creating Google Plus activity where you previously hadn’t had any—suddenly that automated process looks a lot more invasive."

Google is trying harder than ever to be Facebook. Gmail and YouTube users aren’t happy.