• VentureBeat, Friday, May 6, 2011 12:29 PM

What is Google's social strategy? "To help users connect with each other," Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of location and local services, told John Battelle during a conference Q&A this week. While not exactly revelatory, "Perhaps the most interesting thing about Mayer's response was her statement that Google is still 'just getting started,'" notes VentureBeat.

The search giant, for instance, has already rolled out social products like Google +1, which lets users recommend search results to their friends. "So we can probably expect a number of new social products in the near future," VentureBeat adds. Also of note, while Mayer called the prospect of integrating Facebook data into Google's algorithm "very interesting," she said that she feels "skepticism" about whether it will ever happen.

Last year, as VentureBeat notes, "Google allowed users to import their Gmail contact information into Facebook, but Facebook didn't allow a similar swap -- so Google decided to block contact sharing in the other direction too."

Read the whole story at VentureBeat »