Google Me on Chrome OS: a Facebook and iPad Killer
Rumors about Google Me, the new social network that would compete with Facebook, never cease to spread, and one of the features that could make it a serious challenger is social gaming integration. A standalone Google Games platform could be in the plans, considering the investment in Zynga and the acquisition of Slide, but the new web based operating system Chrome OS, that will be released by the end of the year, could play an important role in Google Me’s fortunes.
Advanced browser components could be crucial for developing mobile gaming interfaces on Chrome OS: CNET reports about a new feature that would make it capable of telling which way is up. The browser would know which way the device is being held, allowing the usage of a Chrome OS handheld device as a steering wheel in driving games, for instance.
Tablets and other mobile devices running Chrome OS could be ready for web apps and casual games (even flash games that the iPad won’t show), but what if Google’s browser-operating system was the gateway for its social network?
Chrome OS would indeed provide a great mobile experience, on devices cheaper than the iPad, with seamless integration of search, photo sharing and social games. Businesses would benefit from Place Pages appearing on Google Maps results, that would be more common in mobile search and could help diverting the attention from Facebook Pages. Nevertheless, these features alone don’t seem to be enough to build a product better than Facebook, but the game changer could be one of the key aspects addressed by Google Me: privacy.
Paul Adams, user research lead for social at Google, shows in the slideshow below how simple privacy settings would shape different identities that reflect the the types of relationships we have offline, where multiple independent groups of friends, colleagues and relatives that don’t usually overlap.
Is a “Real Life Social Network” what we need, or Facebook has already shaped our online way of life that it’s now too late to remodel online relations to mirror the offline ones?
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