Google & Social Networking: updates on activities by your Gmail contacts
Google is about to include some controversial new features in your Gmail account: updates on activities by your Gmail contacts. If it turns out to be true, it will totally stir the web community balance and Google will be 10 steps closer to become a king of social networks… I guess? But then who knows, it could be just a feature to complement Google social network “orkut“…
According to Google Operating System, which is a reliable blog that follows Google, Google is about to introduce some controversial new features in your Gmail platform, which is “Updates on activities by your Gmail contacts” ~ Another twitter-like service?
I am assuming the service will be included in the chat box on the left of your Gmail account, which will display updates of your friends or your contacts “whatever you want to call them”.
The news emerges after concerns Google is already violating Google Reader users privacy by making the public shared items PUBLICLY available to everyone and not just SPECIFIC people.It’s not clear what kind of updates you will receive in Gmail, but they’re probably the latest actions of your contacts from different Google services, such as photos they may have added in Google’s photo service, Picasa, or changes they’ve made to their personal profiles — though this is speculation. ~ VentureBeat.com assumes so.
Well, according to the blog post, Gmail’s code suggests that you’ll be able to delete the updates you don’t like, reply by email or post a comment. However, yet again, the report suggests this will be an opt-out, rather than an opt-in.
And as I said before, if this is true, then Google is trying to control the ball game in Facebook’s field, though this field belongs to Social Networks and definitely Google is not one “yet”.
What’s jarring, for many Gmail users, about such a move by Google is that for many of them Gmail has been a professional utility feature. Their address book is filled with contacts that may not be their friends. If this become totally true, then I guess Google is trying to steal LinkedIn market as well “Not Just Facebook”, which will be a sweet move in my opinion.
In my opinion, I do welcome a such service as long as I am able to control it “privacy” as a user.
Since I do use Google services Professionally as well, I would like to see myself creating a Professional Social Network on Google’s grounds and not just LinkedIn!
Print This Post
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Morad Rayyan is IT professional specialized in New Media development and has special interest in networking "routing" as well as programming.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment