google相当清楚目前社交网站的火爆意味着什么，从google相继推出的google buzz和google wave可以看出google对该领域的那颗觊觎的心。但是事实上google的两大社交产品并没有实现预期的成功，与此同时，他们重金并购打造的社交网络orkut与facebook的差距也越拉越大。目前google又推出了新的社交产品google me。

pacman

watblog日前特别针对google在社交领域的各个运作进行了猜测，包括google进军社交游戏的可能性。watblog的两大依据是google推出了chrome浏览器的youtube游戏，以及之前google在首页推出的Pacman游戏，后者曾经引起google用户的疯狂追捧，据称该游戏总共耗费了全球用户500万小时的时间。基于这样的尝试和运作Pacman游戏的经验，再加上google再社交网络领域的大动作，watblog认为google进军社交游戏的可能性相当大。

cieslak-pacman

Google is definitely feeling the “Social Heat” from Zuch’s baby (read Facebook) and other social web players. We have seen Google launching various tools to counter the already available social services such as the Google Buzz and Google Wave. But these two have not done any good either. Add to this the woes of Orkut which has already been overtaken by Facebook in terms of traffic and number of registered users. And now the web is talking about a possible new competitor to Facebook – Google Me.

Recently Google launched a game in YouTube to show off Chrome browser. The game basically involves a complex Mechatronics video which shows a ball traversing through complex paths and you need to answer few questions on various platforms such as Twitter and Last.fm (integrated inside the game) to get through next levels and at the end you are presented with your score and of other users who have topped a particular level.

Similarly, A few days back Google had replaced it’s logo on the search homepage with a Pacman game. Stats also say that the game was played by everyone all over the world amounting to a total duration of  almost 5 Million hours! Given the fact that most of the users are signed in to their Google account almost everytime (thanks to GMail), it could have been very easy for Google to collect user data such as their usernames and their Pacman scores.

Although Google did not chip in any way to share the scores on a social web service (say Google Buzz), but who knows these games could well have been an experiment for more games that are yet to come from Google. However, we cannot comment on the success of such social Games from Google as most of Google’s ventures in social platforms have not been as much of a hit as it’s other services have been.