One of the hottest topics in the social media industry right now is the rumored launch of a new social feature for Google's Gmail. The company is expected to announce a status timeline feature similar to Facebook and Twitter today that would be accessible through Gmail.

Do you think Google could make an impact on social media with this release? Share your thoughts.

So far, Google has been pretty tight-lipped on the details about the product, leaving ample room for speculation. Google has taken a lot of flack for "not being good at social media" in the past, a theory, which I have questioned myself, but even if you agree with this notion, you have to wonder where Google is going with this.

What Will This Feature Be?

It doesn't sound like the feature will be a Gmail Labs feature, although we don't yet know that for certain. If it is and has to be manually turned on, you can probably forget about the masses using it, at least until it graduates from that status.

The feature is said to allow Gmail users to view a stream of status updates from their contacts. Currently, Gmail users already have the ability to set a status update, but once it is changed, the old one goes away. It's not an ongoing timeline like Facebook or Twitter. The new feature would presumably change that.

Possibilities for the Feature

Now for the fun part. What could this feature really be and what possibilities could it open up? The feature would surely be more successful if it is able to connect with Facebook and Twitter. Think about being able to do all of your social media and email communication from one place. That is something Mozilla is trying to develop with its in-progress Raindrop project. What if Google was able to do it with an established product like Gmail? Even if the product doesn't launch with the ability to integrate Facebook and Twitter, who's to say it will never happen?

What if Google starts integrating its own status updates into the real-time search results it presents in regular Google web searches? Why wouldn't they do this? It's another place to push content in this area, and potentially another huge source of information (let's not forget Google's mission to organize the world's information).

Google would almost certainly integrate these into social search, which recently became part of the web search norm. Your Gmail contacts are the first people listed in your "social circle" that Google draws from for these results.

Google could potentially integrate the feature with any product it chooses (and it has a lot to choose from). What if it became available with the click of a button on the Chrome browser (which is gaining popularity)? What if it were integrated with the already social Google Reader? Google Docs? Maps? Latitude? Wave? There could be a Google gadget, for users' iGoogle home pages.

What if it found its way onto the YouTube and Picasa video and photo sharing products? It's already being said that videos and photos from these respective sites will be integrated into the product itself. What if it's available right from those products?

What if there were an Android app for it? Android is also gaining a great deal of momentum in the mobile phone space, and status updates are one of the most popular activities on mobile devices.

What if Google promoted it with a link on the Google home page, so everybody performing a search could check it out?

Competition

A lot of people are suggesting that such a feature could never compete with Facebook and Twitter, but for the reasons mentioned above, I am not so quick to rule out the possibility. No, it's not likely to come out and kill those two, but that's not to say that it can't co-exist, and gain popularity of its own, if Google makes the right moves in integrating it with its other products.

How well the product can compete is directly related to what possibilities Google explores. Even if a lot of options aren't explored immediately, that's not to say they won't be slowly. Google has a way of adding a feature here, and adding a feature there to its different products. Before you know it, things are more connected than you may have realized.

It's not necessarily all bout Gmail. According to comScore, Gmail had 176 million unique visitors in December, but how many people have actual GOOGLE accounts? You don't have to be a Gmail user to have one, and Google is increasingly finding more ways to draw people in through various products.

Facebook is supposedly working on its own email product, which could directly compete with Gmail. Between that and Google's upcoming announcement, the competition might be heating up between the two companies more than ever, but it still doesn't mean they can't co-exist. Will it even matter as more third-party apps begin supporting everything? It's very possible that these updates will be portable among all of these different services anyway. Facebook has had no problem with posting updates to Twitter. Last year, Google actually made a big deal about its initiative to make user data as portable as possible. They formed the Data Liberation Front to "make it easier for users to move their data in and out of Google products."

How Could Google's New Product Be Used for Business?

Details are still sketchy at best, but how could something like Google's upcoming status update product work as a tool for businesses? The first thing that comes to mind is the expansion of communication with existing contacts. When you're frequently seeing what your contacts are saying, it will not only keep those people fresh in your mind, but it can cultivate further communication.

The feature could possibly lend to better organization of your communication, which could in turn save time. Again, depending on how many of the possibilities (if any) mentioned in this article actually come to fruition, it could become a central place for that communication.

Then you have the search possibilities. As I discussed above, the feature could potentially have an impact on at least two aspects of Google's search results pages - real-time search and social search. That's two good-sized chunks of SERP real-estate. Not all SERPS have both or either, but it opens some additional search marketing doors. The feature would also open up more reputation management issues,  as simply an additional place to monitor, not to mention other ways businesses are currently using services like Facebook and Twitter for marketing.

We'll See...

Stay tuned to WebProNews, as we will provide updates as we learn more about Google's new product, which by the way should be only one of two announcements from Google's press event today. The company has been quoted as saying they will announce innovations to two if their most popular products.

Do you see the potential for a Google status update product to be successful? Would you use it? What would it have to do to interest you? Please share your opinions.
 

Related Articles:

> Is Google Launching a Competitor for Facebook/Twitter?

> Is Google Bad at Social Media or Really, Really Good at it?

> Is Gmail Google's Real Social Network?