Google has been facing the heat in recent times due to the ever-increasing popularity and growth of Facebook. Though Google has always maintained that Facebook is not in direct competition with them, it was apparent that they would try doing something to get a step ahead. The recent tweet from the Digg founder, Kevin Rose adds fuel to this rumor. Notice the words – huge rumor, but Kevin is not someone who would simply stir up a hornets’ nest without an ounce of stuff in it. So, will ‘Google Me‘ be a reality? Will that be a social networking service that can kill Facebook? If yes, what happens to Orkut? Facebook, as a social networking service is as big and powerful as Google is in search engine market. Tumbling them will not be an easy task at all and Google knows that better. But then as TNW writes, Google’s very own social network hub – Orkut still has some 100+ million users (wonder how many of them are active) and their recent not-so-successful attempt, Google Buzz has few millions as well. So, the best bet for Google is to launch a new service (Google Me?) which would combine Orkut with Google Buzz and can easily get enough traffic to take on Facebook. With some intelligent strategy like better privacy features and good UI, Google can hope to make Google Me a real alternative for Facebook. Now, for the other side of the rumor, SFWeekly theorizes Google Me to be a simple overhaul upgrade to Google Profiles, which might explain why Rick Klau, the developer who built Buzz, was recently tapped to overhaul Google Profiles. Img via Fastcompany
