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Google still in denial mode, says no Facebook rival
By siliconindia
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Friday, 12 November 2010, 11:54 IST
Monaco: Google has once again denied the widespread rumor that the search-engine giant is developing a social networking platform to compete with the rival Facebook. Google said it will instead focus on creating social applications.
"We're not working on a social network platform that's just going to be another social network platform," said Hugo Barra, Head of Google's mobile product management. Talking on the impact of mobile apps on the desktop web at the Monaco Media Forum, he said "We do think that social is an ingredient for success for any app going forward, search and advertising being probably the best two examples that I would mention. So that's how we're thinking about the problem."
Launched in 2004, Facebook skyrocketed over the years and has more than 500 million members today. Google CEO Eric Schmidt had sparked speculations of a Facebook rival when he said the company would add a layer of social- networking features to its main products. The speculations intensified earlier this week when the search engine company said it had blocked Facebook from accessing a user's Gmail contacts to add to their friends' lists accusing that Facebook does not allow Gmail users to search for contacts on Facebook.
However, Barra rubbished the rumored Google's social networking site name 'Google Me' calling it 'awful'.