Google Should Build on the Long Tail of Social Networks

In Google related news, word on the street is they're going to start the war against FaceBook on Nov 5th.

As many already noted, FaceBook (or any other social network, for that matter) strenght is function of just 2 things:
1) its user count (I'll join only if my friends are there)
2) its coolness factor as a predictor of the future user count (that's why FaceBook is more of a threat for Google than it is MySpace)

That's why I don't see Google actually winning the war should they build - as it is expected from early rumors - on the Orkut platform (unless it gets a big overhaul).
Orkut is a Social Network that has a strong base in Brazil and India, but is clearly below MySpace and - maybe - Facebook in NA and EU (the exact user count is unknown due to the high number of fake and clone profiles, check Wikipedia for further info), but you can think of it as a closer and

What Google COULD do to win the war us not only opening the platform (as it is widely expected), but also make it a social network aggregator. I have profiles over a dozen social networks and I use 3 regularly (Twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn) on top of my blogs, but my friends can't look at all the action easily (yes I'm setting up a lifestream but 95% of my friends have no idea how to subscribe to an RSS).

I NEED A SOCIAL NETWORK THAT CAN EASILY PUT ALL THIS STUFF TOGETHER, and when I say together I mean that:

1) the stuff that I post on Twitter shows up on the new social network (unless I state it differently)
2) the stuff that I post on this new social network shows up on Twitter etc (unless I state it differently)

The reason is that this way Google removes the only defence FaceBook/others have (the "my-friends-are-there" rule) by at the same time building a huge barrier for themselves (how many social networks like that do I need?).

Of course you may say that others could do the same, and that is true. But then you should think that Google is the king of internet execution, so I have no doubt that - all other things being equal - they can bui

The good news is that Google has already something similar going on.
Last year Google sponsored a Carnegie Mellon University project called SocialStream that looks perfect for this purpose (to understand why have a look at the GoogleOS coverage of it or just play the video below)

On top of that, consider that this is nothing new for Google. If you think about it, what I'm telling is simply that Google has to leverage on the Long Tail of Social Networks, and they already did it with Advertising, Office Productivity and - in a way - Search itself, so it should be no big deal for them.

At least I hope so.

UPDATE:
I'm not sure if I misinterpret but I see something similar in Dave Winer's post of today:

"[...] we just need a way to co-relate two identity systems, Twitter's and Netflix's. And think of the value in integrating Amazon with Twitter. The mind explodes at the possibilities. This is what I meant when I said earlier "they’re not trivial problems, they’ve been there since the Internet outgrew academia and started being used for commercial purposes."

UPDATE 2:
Robert Scoble makes an interesting point on this following Google's acquisition of Jaiku:

"Interesting that Google is building a very strong position in the RSS ecosystem with Google Reader and Feedburner and now Jaiku. Interesting, will Google use its RSS position against Facebook? We’ll see come November 5.
Imagine if Google made a more open social networking tool than Facebook all via RSS feeds? Stick that into your RSS feed reader and smoke it!"