Ever since TechCrunch reported on Google’s social networking plans, codenamed ‘Maka-Maka’, the entire blogosphere is going gaga over it.
While a lot of bloggers are looking at ‘Maka-Maka’ in a Orkut vs. Facebook context, I think Google will be short-selling itself if it looked at the opportunity in such a limited way:
The bigger vision is to combine all of Google’s apps and services through Maka-Maka. Google already has so much data on you, depending on how many Google apps you already use. It just needs to bring everything together… in different ways, along with data about you from other social services across the Web, and give developers access to the social layer tying all of these apps together underneath. The real killer app for Google is not to turn Orkut into a Facebook clone. It is to turn every Google app into a social application without you even noticing that you’ve joined yet another social network. (TechCrunch)
By the way, if you are wondering what ‘Maka-Maka’ means, it may refer to a Hawaiian song about friendship, a shop for women’s dresses, a Japanese RPG (role playing game), or a modern, all-color adult manga about two girls who appear to be “friends with benefits” (via Andy Beal).