Can Google get social networking right?

Google has the brains and infrastructure to build a great social networking tool. But in order for it to be useful to me everyone I know that currently uses Facebook would need to switch to to Google's new platform.<p>I just can't see that happening anytime soon unless Google can come up with a killer feature that Facebook can't easily replicate.

Google failed at "Shopping", failed at "Video" (read youtube acquisition), failed at "Buzz", failed at "Wave" and I'm sure there are others that I'm leaving off. What google does is Ad's and search, that's their bread and butter.<p>It's very hard for big companies to venture off and do something out of their comfort zone. Facebook failed at "Marketplace". And you'd think that Facebook would be poised to take over that space, but still struggled.<p>Google is more poised to bite off of Linkedin's social graph, rather than Facebook's. IMO Though, with the right hire's Google can do it.

probably not. They don't hire the kind of people who'd waste time on those SN websites, or do they?