text: Google's answer to Facebook? - The Technology Chronicles
  By Verne Kopytoff on October 30, 2007 at 5:15 PM
  Google isn't sitting still after being trumped last week by Microsoft for an investment in Facebook.
  At least, that's what the blogosphere is buzzing about after rumors surfaced recently that Google is secretly developing a response to the Facebook phenomenon code named Maka Maka.
  The first stages of the project, which would better connect data that users store in the company's various products, could be introduced next week, according to TechCrunch. Some more information is available from Google Blogoscoped.
  The details are still sketchy and probably over the head of anyone outside the technology industry. Suffice to say that Google hopes to combine user data under Maka Maka's umbrella, and then offer that data to outside developers, who can then create their own applications.
  Facebook has proved that such a recipe works. Developers have built hundreds of products known as widgets, that Facebook users can incorporate into their personal homepages.
  TechCrunch reported that the initial release will most likely be limited to Google's existing social network, Orkut, and include about 50 partners. Although popular in a handful of countries, Orkut has failed to catch on broadly in the way that Facebook and MySpace have over the past couple years.
  But keep in mind that there's a Google rumor per week these days and the company, although dominant in search, has a track record of releasing new products that fail to live up to the inevitable hype.