• Google Operating System, Monday, December 31, 2007 11:02 AM

Google Operating System (GOS), a blog/rumor site, alleges that big G is planning on serving Gmail users status updates from their contacts. Gmail already displays contacts that are online, accompanied by a status message of their choosing.

While it's not yet clear what kind of updates these will be, the blog surmises that they might be related to your friends' latest actions within Google's network--a la Facebook's news feed. Upon reading some Google code, Ionut, another blog, says there will be a universal opt-out for the new feature.

Even so, GOS claims the feature would actually make Gmail closer to Plaxo than Facebook. Plaxo, a Web-based address book, "became a metaphor for spam in its early years," the blog says, adding that contact updates inside an email app--which is far closer to a utility than a social network--would be "nothing but spam."

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