Google Denies Rumours Of ‘Circles’ Social Network

Google has shot down rumours that it is has a Facebook competitor called Circles ready for imminent launch.

A report on Sunday was the latest to give seemingly credible details on a Google social networking product. Last summer Digg founder Kevin Rose launched the hearsay mill around such a product with a tweet that read: “Ok, umm, huge rumor: Google to launch facebook competitor very soon ‘Google Me,’ very credible source.”

Social rumours

Adam D’Angelo, a former Facebook executive and co founder of question-and-answer website Quora, later backed up the Google Me rumour, but no product was ever announced.

The latest report, published by ReadWriteWeb, gave details of a product called Google Circles that it said was due to be launched imminently, perhaps during the South By Southwest (SXSW) festival currently on in Austin, Texas.

“We believe that Google will preview a major new social service called Google Circles at South by Southwest Interactive today,” the report stated.

Google soon responded with a note on Twitter: “We’re not launching any products at SXSW.”

The company’s Chris Messina went further, telling the Wall Street Journal that while Google was developing various social networking technologies, such as those described by ReadWriteWeb, these were intended to provide enhancements to its existing products, rather than forming a stand-alone product.

Technology expert Tim O’Reilly posted a Twitter tweet saying not only that he had “seen Google Circles” but that “it looks awesome”, but he later removed the post and changed his story, according to the Journal.

“It’s not a product, per se, and it’s not a new social network. Just some research-y thinking about how you could better manage social data. There’s no story here. Just some labs stuff,” O’Reilly said.

Failed attempts

Google has launched several socially oriented products and features, including the failed Wave and the controversial Buzz, and has repeatedly said it is looking for ways to make its products more socia, following repeated reports that Facebook is getting more hits than Google (on somecounts)and has more loyal users.

“We’re always experimenting with new ways to improve our products. As with all experiments at Google, we don’t have any additional information about if or when products will launch,” Google stated.

However, another IT blog, The Next Web, was reluctant to entirely dismiss the reality of Circles as a stand-alone product, saying it could launch in the coming months, perhaps in May.