Over the weekend, Kevin Rose (of Digg and extensive rumormongering fame) let loose with a tweet involving two of our favorite companies, Google and Facebook. The complete tweet is above: It alleges that Google is to launch a Facebook competitor "very soon" under the name "Google Me." This all comes from a "very credible source."
Kevin Rose is almost as well known for his breaking of rumors as he is for founding and running Digg--his predictions, especially as regards Apple products, have often been unnervingly on the mark. To be fair, he's been wrong as often as he's been right, but in the world of tech rumors, as in baseball, a .500 average is more than enough to get you into the Hall of Fame.
So what of this rumor? Google's constantly experimenting with new services, including social networking and other forms of communication. Some haven't been so successful--Buzz never achieved mainstream success due to a privacy scandal and a lack of consumer interest, and Wave failed due to a lack of consumer comprehension--but some, like Google Voice and Google Talk, have done very well. Buzz may not have toppled Twitter, but Google is a very capable company and could come up with a killer networking product.
SFWeekly guesses that Google Me, if it exists, could be an expansion of Google Profiles, which is totally reasonable. Google Profiles gathers information about you from your use of Google services--with some communication and livestream additions, it could turn into a service much like Facebook.
But, of course, that's all blind guessing. Could Google have a Facebook competitor called Google Me in the works? Sure. Do they? We'll have to wait and find out.
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