Google’s social network plans emerge

Since leaving Facebook (the story of which is told here, here, here and here) I’ve been waiting with some anticipation for news of Google’s plans for social networking. Paul Jacobson has found some news on the subject. Says he:

As I understand this plan, Google is releasing a bunch of APIs, probably initially focussed on Orkut, to be rolled out across most, if not all, of Google’s properties. This would result in a kind of social network/interactive layer over these sites and services. Developers would be able to develop apps based on these APIs, presumably for distribution across the Google network and use on Google’s sites.

… I think this is going to be a new beginning for a new paradigm of the social web.

Sounds promising. Very promising.