In response to questions about Google’s rumored Facebook killer, "Google Me," CEO Eric Schmidt summed everything up pretty succinctly.
"Everybody has convinced themselves that there’s some huge project about to get announced next week. And I can assure you that’s not the case," said Schmidt at Google’s Zeitgeist conference yesterday.
Instead, Google is working on a "layered" approach to social networking. "We’re trying to take Google’s core products and add a social component," said Schmidt. "If you think about it, it’s obvious. With your permission, knowing more about who your friends are, we can provide more tailored recommendations. Search quality can get better."
So imagine searching for something on Google, for instance, and your search results are sprinkled with information about which of your Facebook friends searched for the same information. Or perhaps which sites that show up in the search results have been visited by people you follow on Twitter.
That’s purely speculation on my part, but something like that would go along with the whole "layering" idea that Schmidt put forth. Some of the big challenges for Google will be how to access certain types of information from inside sites like Facebook, as well as quelling the privacy concerns that will undoubtedly arise. Do you want people you’re connected to within various social networks to know what you’ve been looking for on the internet?
More on Techland: What Would it Take for Google to Lure You Away from Facebook?