• Gawker, Wednesday, December 22, 2010 12:55 PM

What's the likelihood of Google mounting a successful social strategy? Put one way, the search giant's more likely to land on the moon, says Paul Buchheit, who was employee number 23 at Google -- where he invented Gmail and coined the slogan "Don't be evil" -- before doing a stint at Facebook. Regarding "social" and Google's attempt to rival Facebook, Buchheit tells Gawker, "I expect that Google will find greater success with their self-driving car and moon landing initiatives." As Gawker notes, "Having worked for both companies, Buchheit is in a good position to evaluate the 'war' between the two companies over the social networking space."

Still, why is Buchheit so bearish on Google's social prospects? "Google's strength is in building large scale computer systems ... and they reflexively try to apply that to all problems," he tells Gawker. What's more, Facebook is very good at what it does, he adds, while "the network effects in social are very substantial." One hope for Google is to create "something fundamentally different" like Twitter or Foursquare, Buchheit says. The likelihood of Google doing that, however, is low because the company isn't particularly adept at nurturing new ideas.

Read the whole story at Gawker »