MIT's
Technology Review is asking the billion-dollar question: Can Google execute a competitive social media strategy? Along with recent social
gaming acquisitions, "Google already owns several products that encourage online social interaction -- including YouTube, Google Talk, Google Reader, and Blogger," the journal notes. "But it has
struggled to deliver a successful dedicated social networking service." Consultant Jared Spool says of Google's social efforts to date: "It was always the technology and the engineering that drove it
-- the experience was sort-of layered on afterward."
Spool adds that other failed social offerings from Google, such as Lively, its foray into virtual worlds, and Wave, an experiment in online
communication and collaboration, originated as side projects for the company's engineers. Meanwhile, Nick O'Neill, a social-networking industry expert insists that Google needs to hone its search
results by considering a users' social connections and the information shared with friends.
Read the whole story at Technology Review »
