Google already has a social network, called Orkut, since October 2006, which is pretty big in Brazil but not so much elsewhere. This article is about Google Profiles, an entirely different service,  that duplicates some of the functionality of Orkut.

Turns out, that it’s indeed similar to LinkedIn. It allows you to add current and past work positions, skills, a short introduction, education information, links to your other profiles, as well as photos from Google Picasa or Flickr.

It also allows you to add detailed contact information and control privacy settings.

Its too early too tell at the moment, but if Google decides to go forward with creating a social network, it’s going to be huge.

Google is the start page for the whole world at the moment, and they have millions of registered users – not to mention the people they could bring in through a campaign on the Google.com .

Google is also known to create extremely simple, easy to use interfaces; this could allow more mainstream users to sign up for social networking which could mean that this service could gain the largest user base  – effectively becoming the phone book of the world.

The introduction on Google Profiles says:

The more information you provide, the easier it will be for friends to find you.

While the help web page omits such references:

A Google profile is simply how you present yourself on Google products to other Google users. It allows you to control how you appear on Google and tell others a bit more about who you are. With a Google profile, you can easily share your web content on one central location. You can include, for example, links to your blog, online photos, and other profiles such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. You have control over what others see. Your profile won’t display any private information unless you’ve explicitly added it. –Google Help

If you think about it, Google Profiles is the obvious development, as it would integrate with other Google services like Chat, Reader, Gmail, Sites, etc. to provide a common base.

Although there’s no beta logo, Google Profiles is far from complete if it wants to compete with the likes of Facebook or LinkedIn. At the moment, it doesn’t have a way of adding friends. This can’t be very hard to add since this functionality already exists in Google Reader.

This is a consistent upgrade to the previous version of Google Profiles that was very limited and was covered by Google Operating System. This was also observed by Labnol, but without any implications toward social networking. Techcrunch said:

Google looks to be essentially creating a de-facto social network profile page, without having an actual social network around it. Apparently, Google, and all its services, are the social network.

Do you think Google will finish Google Profiles and create a full-fledged  social network? What do you think are the implications of this happening?

Founded in early 2007, Wixi has continually added more functionality, and at this point is an quite amazing service. While being more Gamma than Beta, Wixi appears to be a feature complete service – allowing you to easily upload, manage, view and share media. I didn’t encounter any issues while using the service – no errors or freezes – and enjoyed reasonable fast uploads (200-300KB/s). I didn’t expect that a service using a mix of JavaScript and Flash will behave so consistent and snappy.

Wixi’s interface – clearly designed to appeal even the least computer-savvy users – resembles your desktop – windows, menus and, of course, a wallpaper of your choosing.

One of Wixi’s strong points is the ability to set access levels to files; private, friends or public. You wouldn’t want to share your final essay with the whole world, would you? Because you can pick individual people with which you want  to share a file or a folder, you can work together with your friends on a project, and not worry about sending each revision over email to the other participants.

Once you invited your friends to Wixi, you are automatically updated with their public activity via the Friends Activity Report. Arranged by media type, you could find pictures that your girlfriend took on the trip, or just as easily, the new school timetable posted by a colleague. Wixi has a lot of real-life uses that differentiate it from the other storage services – because of the tight integration with social aspects.

Social tools on the site allow users to interact with their friends online, across campus or across the globe, sharing a cool new song or photos of a recent vacation or family event. For those without access to their computers, Wixi offers long-distance access to media files. Registered members can also meet fellow users, browsing their Wixis, discovering new media and expanding their social circles.

Wixi also enables you to discover new content by simply browsing other people’s public ‘wixis’; if you find something you like, you can leave a message, save the file to your Wixi or request to be friends with that person.

Another interesting feature is ‘Web Channels’. Recently implemented, Web Channels lets you search, save and view content from YouTube, Daily Motion, Flickr, Hulu, CNN and MTV Music.

With offices in Paris, New York, Buenos Aires and half a million dollars in funding, Wixi has set a high goal for itself, ‘a world-class community for millions of users’. Their goal is far from unattainable if they continue adding features, maintaining the service reliable and easy to use. Wixi certainly gets my thumbs up, with the same concerns I have for any cloud storage service: privacy and data safety.

You can sign up for free at wixi.com; the free option gives you 3GB of storage and just a couple of restrictions, such as streaming files under 100MB. The premium option removes al the restrictions and gives you unlimited storage.

The first 50 readers who send an email leave a comment on the blog will get an code for the premium service; If you want to say thanks, include in your email a cool service, website or software you’ve discovered or a topic you’d like me to cover. This will help me pick future stories according to your interests.

As always, I love hearing what you think, in the comments. Have you previously used Wixi or a similar service? What could be improved?