There are rumors brewing that Google might launch a new social media platform today. One part of my is (of course!) excited about it! It’s a bit like a rumor of a new apple product—what could it be, what will it do, what will it look like, will I be able to get it?

But I am in doubt that it is actually going to happen. SXSW is a place where rumors go to breed, and this could be a logical next step for google. But what would they provide that isn’t already here? Facebook has the coverage. Diaspora has the privacy and design. Last.fm and Blip.fm have the music and there seem to be no challengers to 4square’s meteoric rise (despite facebook’s attempts at checkin, their privacy record is too lousy for sane people to trust them with their whereabouts). I could see the argument that someone needs to bring all of these disparate elements together into one perfect monster (“isn’t enough that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?”). But I think Google’s first step would have been to buy one of the existing elements.

I however am often tragically wrong. In this case it wouldn’t be tragic at all.

What do you think?