Who Would Use a Google "Social Network"?

Apparently Google is working on yet another social network to compete against Facebook.  Previous attempts with Orkut and Buzz failed to gain any significant traction and Facebook continues to make strategic decisions that entrench it more and more as a power to be reckoned with.  Some are as bold as to say that Search is "over" and social marketing and realtime search (a la Twitter) are the new paradigms moving forward.

I think one reason Google has failed to really break into this space so far has to do with both Facebook's critical mass and Google's lack of a coordinated push into the space (or maybe it was never a priority and they haven't even really tried yet :P).  Facebook is a powerful social platform based on relationships, and Google is a collection of many services, some which enable collaboration, but lack a compelling personal and  friendship element.

Google still has a very strong chance to turn it around and create a significant social network if it can come up with a coordinated strategy.   There are still a number of users who are unwilling or unable to use Facebook, and there are a number of users who are just hanging on the edge, willing to try something else.  If Google made the perfect alternative with just the right balance of social and networking features, it might turn out to surprise the naysayers.

Consider the following things Google can draw upon:

1. A massive network of Android devices whose owners are constantly in touch with friends and relatives, a platform growing by 1.4million devices a week
2. a huge number of Gmail users who already manage contacts, both personal and business
3. a collaborative document system
4. an absolutely mammoth user reach via Google search and Adsense, that happens to also give them huge profiling capabilities of a large proportion of web users.
5. A news platform in Google News that is still highly sought after
6. a HUGE network of publishers and sites that run Adsense and already rely on Google for traffic, every single such publisher already has a Google account.
7. Arguably the defacto destination for public video content on the web.

The basic picture I'm seeing is that Google's got a tremendously broad reach as far as users who already have Google accounts, and this may allow them to overcome the dreaded registration barrier to entry other networks are faced with.

How Google can drive adoption:

• How easily could Google convince websites to adopt their own variant of "Google Connect"?  As a web publisher myself, I'd support it if it was made properly.
• How easily can Google encourage "Google Like" buttons?  Depending on what they do, it can happen overnight (what if Google Like buttons influenced SERPs , for instance, even at some miniscule level balanced for gaming, who could risk not using them?)
• What would happen if the social networking capabilities that Google offers spanned across all their properties to some degree (and yet remains non-invasive)?

In fact, if done right, Google can have its users using its social network without them even really thinking of it as a social network.  Maybe they don't even need to make a social network, but instead keep integrating and coordinating deeper social features into their entire portfolio of services.  I'm not arguing that Google's social network is the next big thing to happen in social networking.  I'm saying Google has a lot they can draw upon to make it succeed where others may not.  Unfortunately, as I heard repeated by many recently at GrowConf 2010, success is sometimes a mix of doing all the right things and just plain having a large dose of dumb luck.