TechCrunch's Erick Schoenfeld has set the blogosphere atwitter on Tuesday with additional rumor and analysis on "Maka-Maka", the code name Google has reportedly given to its efforts to create an open social network based on applications such as Google Reader, Gmail, and Google Calendar. (Makamaka, incidentally, means "friend" in Hawaiian, lending credibility to a code name which otherwise sounds like something a Muppet would say.)
Google has been widely expected to roll out an API for Orkut, it's social network that has yet to gain much traction domestically. While much debate has centered around the ability for Orkut to attract users, Schoenfeld's sources indicate the big picture plan is for Google to use the web as a platform for its social network, rather than trying to move the party inside its own walls. Separate Google services already perform many of the typical social network tasks, and contain much social data. Apps created for Google's platform, says Schoenfeld, could be taken to other social sites while a user could also import to Google his data from other social networks.
(Privacy issues TBD.) An initial announcement of some sort of social network API from Google was widely thought to be coming on November 5, but
Schoenfeld suggests it may be delayed until the 8th or 9th.
A confidential Google video leaked in September—now removed from the net—indicated that Google is planning to use its Google Reader engine to create a news feed of an individual's social data. If that's the case, people who already use Google's various services could be rolled into Maka-Maka rather passively. There's something appealingly democratic there: demographics who are less inclined to sign up for a social network, collect friends, install apps, etc. will now be brought into the social graph. Highlighting connections based on the people we're already connected to—clever.
