Plenty of rumors are spreading like wildfire in Google town.  The most recent news to hit the headlines is Google's alleged plan to put up its on social networking site called Google Me.  Google Me is purported to be Facebook's biggest rival if Google will push through with this new venture.

Google Me was introduced through a tweet from Kevin Rose, Digg co-founder.  According to his source, Google will soon unleash Google Me, another social networking site to give Facebook a run for its money.  Without confirmation from Google, this remains a huge rumor so far.  But this didn't stop some experts from speculating on how Google Me will turn out to be.

What to expect from Google Me

As early as now, some are speculating that Google Me could be the expansion of Google Profiles, which "represents how you appear on Google."  Right now, there's not much going on with Google Profiles, but if this will be developed further, personal information plus broadcasting can be added to the mix.  This seems to make a good foundation for Google Me.  Another information that can possibly justify the speculation is the news from SF Weekly, which says that the developer of Google Buzz, Rick Klau, will work on Google Profiles this time.

It seems like Google itself has a good headstart despite failed attempts in the past.  As a very popular search engine, lots of people use Google features, and based on these alone, Google knows much more about online browsers.  They can use these information for creating a social networking site that's way better than the previous Google Buzz.

According to Infosyncworld, Google Me could be used on mobile phones, especially with Google's Android devices.  A possible feature could location-based tracking since Google "already has Latitude."  The service would be smart enough to know where people are and what they are doing.

Google Me can also be designed as a productivity suite.  Google Wave can be integrated into Google Me for document collaboration.  This would bring much success to Google Wave, whose features are seen as mere duplication of some that are found in Buzz.  Through the integration of varied Google services, Google Me may just have a shot at competing against Facebook.

Lessons to be learned from Google Buzz

Google Buzz failed after privacy concerns were hurled against the service.  Buzz was an opt-out feature, which not a lot of people favored after finding out that their contact lists were all over the web.  Acknowledging its lapse for better judgment, Google responded with an apology for the privacy issues it has caused.  Another concern is the automated content Google Buzz had published, which makes up 90% according to ReadWriteWeb.  About 63% came from Twitter and 27 percent from RSS feeds.

Learning its lessons from Google Buzz, it is said that Google Me would have to be an opt-in website.  The new social networking service should take matters of privacy controls seriously.  There should also be brand new features that are not just culled from other websites such as Twitter and automated RSS feeds.

Microsoft seems bent on exploring and competing in all the areas of computing.  The company must be impressed with Twitter that it suddenly launched something quite similar to this networking site. At the moment, however, the application is still limited to just one country, China.

MSN's Juku

Microsoft made use of its existing application, the Windows Live Messenger, and expanded it into a micro-blogging service. The software giant’s chat messenger is a big hit in China. So, Microsoft decided to take advantage of that. Dubbed MSN Juku, the Twitter-like service is in its beta version already. Juku users get to post 140-character messages that can be scrolled through a timeline. Users can also check out friends’ timelines for their messages, announcements, or status updates.

Though the service looks and functions like Twitter, Microsoft denies that its MSN Juku had been designed after Twitter. The company insists that Juku is MSN China’s own innovation. Juku’s name comes from the Chinese used for the words “cool” and "gathering." However, some critics could only agree to the gathering part of the meaning. This is because an application based on another is thought of as a copycat of sorts. While Americans may think of Juku as a knockoff of Twitter, Chinese locals may think of it as a Plurk bandit. Plurk is another Twitter-like service, which is popular in Asia. Bandit, on the other hand, is just another way to call a knockoff.

MSN Juku, however, does not limit itself to micro-blogging like Twitter. The application also allows users to play simple games where users can win prizes. Users can announce wins through icons they can display over their Juku. Critics should not zero in on Juku when it comes to the supposed Chinese innovation’s similarity to Twitter, which is a micro-blogging network popular worldwide. This is because there are a lot of other applications, with Twitter-like functions, that have come out.

Social networking in China

Social networking, as a whole, has become very popular in China that 124 million people from the country are using at least one social networking site. Authorities actually had to block these services for months because of their fear of what could be passing to and from Chinese citizens, and possibly passing from other countries. It could then be argued that MSN Juku is a great step for the Chinese as they move towards greater communication avenues. Microsoft, however, may not be thinking about that when it made to move towards creating MSN Juku. The company just likes to cover all grounds, hoping to reach further in the world of social networking. Juku is also a promotion of the Windows Live messenger. After all, a lot of people today prefer to use Facebook and Twitter to get their point across. Social networks also have their own chat service. So, a chat service could also move towards social networking.