Google Tackles the Facebook Challenge

According to Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, Google had a super secret meeting on Thursday to discuss their social networking strategy. Well, not really that secret if three of the participants are willing to talk about the meeting afterward.

Google has a social networking service, Orkut, but the service has had only become hugely popular in Brazil. Facebook, meanwhile, has been growing in popularity and media attention.

Google's strategy, according to TechCrunch, is to be more open than Facebook. That means developers would be able to develop applications that use Orkut's social information both inside and outside of Orkut.

November 5th is theoretically the day Google will announce the new APIs for developers. I wonder if they chose Guy Fawkes Day on purpose.

• Review of Orkut
• How to Find a Map of Your Friends in Orkut