Google's One-Two Punch to Facebook's... Face

Yup, it had to happen and is happening. Google will soon launch it's own social network to rival MySpace and Facebook. The new network is called "Maka-Maka," which means "a big hit" or something. Word on the street is that this is an internal codename for the project and the name will most likely be changed at launch. News.com noted, "'maka' means knock or blow in Hebrew. Maybe they are hoping to do a one-two punch to Facebook." Which, is funny considering that just a couple weeks ago, Google was on the losing end of a bid war with Microsoft to acquire 1.5% of Facebook.

Google recently released new APIs for application developers to leverage Google’s social graph data. This will help drive traffic, and the data will be available to other social sites that want to participate. It's a great way for Google to gain targeting data for their advertising efforts.

Currently, Google has a social network (if you want to call it that) called Orkut. TechCrunch wrote:

The bigger challenge for Google in the U.S. is Orkut itself. While there may be 24.6 million monthly visitors to Orkut worldwide, only 500,000 of those are here in the U.S., according to comScore. Cool social apps aren’t much good if none of your friends use them.

We'll see how many people want to switch over to Maka-Maka when it's released, and if they will offer some sort of incentive for the switch. God knows I don't want to hvae to enter all my "favorites" and pictures again on a new site. And, it appears that Maka-Maka wil be just as cluttered as Facebook is becoming. I hate looking at someone's page and witnessing a page fold length epic battle between pirates, ninjas and zombies. Dammit people! CLEAN UP YOUR GODDAMN MINI-FEEDS!