While it is always a bad idea to try to predict sweeping industry changes from single feature releases, I think that Google’s new attempt at creating a universal profile is ripe for dissecting. Especially when you put it in context with the moves like Open Social and the intense competition fermenting between Google and Facebook in the Social Networking space.

Now for the question, why would Google want universal profiles?

Google Profiles

While this seems quite obviously to be a vie towards creating a Google Social Network of a sort, that might not be the best use for a feature like this. Lets not forget that the raison d’etre for Google is to be the repository for the world’s information. In this context, adding user profiles just gives them a coherent means of moving into a new dataset.

Right now the only information available to them is your name, occupation and a list of links. However, that’s not quite true. Your Google Profile will also be used as a universal identifier across a wide range of other Google products.

It wouldn’t take much imagination to envision a world where Google splices data feeds together with the demographic data that you provide them to create anything from an enhanced People Search to more targeted AdWords. While it’s not at all obvious that this is the path that Google is heading down, it is also not unreasonable to think that data correlation isn’t part of the equation.

Web 2.0 Roundup

As it stands, from allowing you to “share” things through Google Reader to Open Social now to this profile project, Google is beginning to make strong moves towards information integration. More specifically, this integration is all about you. Will these profile be the first step towards a Google social network? Maybe. The one thing we can know for sure is that it’s more data in the bank for Google.

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