Google sees room for several social networks

During a meeting with journalists at the annual Allen & Co media shindig in Sun Valley, Idaho, yesterday, Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt made an interesting statement. Mr. Schmidt said that Google would “love to have deeper integration with Twitter and Facebook”. The statement is interesting because Google is now hot with their yet unfinished Google+ which is considered as the main contender to the two biggest social networks.

At the same occasion, Mr. Schmidt also stated that there are plenty of rooms online for social networks to reside including Google+. Watchers said this is a kind of soft challenge toward the Twitter and Facebook that have been dominating the social media market during the past few years.

Mr. Schmidt also expressed his praise for the marketing technique provided by his company’s ad broker. He said that keeping the social networks only to a very minimum of invite-only testers had resulted in tons of requests.

One of the more popular features on Plus, especially with younger users, was online video chat, he said.

Singling out two services where Google Plus can now be viewed as a competitor, Schmidt said he would "love to have deeper integration with Twitter and Facebook."

Google's search deal with Twitter recently expired, and despite "a substantive and lengthy discussion," the companies couldn't agree on terms, he said.

And Google's overtures to Facebook to discuss letting Plus users import Facebook friends also went nowhere, Schmidt said.

Schmidt laid out a future with multiple sources of online identity and multiple social networks, even as detractors say Facebook's service, with millions of users around the world, is too entrenched to allow for serious competition.

Schmidt also said Google executives -- though not he himself -- had discussed the recent hacking of email accounts with Chinese officials.

This week, Google has also reached a stalemate stance with Twitter after its contract to display Tweet updates ended and so far there is no sign of renewal contract. Facebook, meanwhile, has for months blocking the Chrome extension that enable users to export information of the friends to the rival services.