Google social initiative launch delayed until spring – rumour


30 Nov 2010

Google’s biggest move into the social web is reportedly experiencing delays and won’t be launched until spring 2011.

According to Mashable, Google will launch its major social initiative in March or April.

It is said to be top secret and it is led by a vice-president of engineering, Vic Gundotra.

The delay was attributed to “disorganisation and too many different teams working parallel or in conflict,” according to a source.

There were previous rumours about a service called “Google Me”, which was supposed to be a full-on competitor with Facebook.

However, Google’s head of mobile product development, Hugo Barra, said the company was “not working on a social network platform that’s just going to be another social network platform.”

Rather, it was said that it was taking a more layered approach, adding social elements to existing products.

With Facebook’s dominance in the social internet, Google has been looking to catch up.

The search giant has yet to come up with a true contender to Facebook’s social networking crown. Will this project to be revealed in spring be the answer?