The trusty address book in your Gmail account (assuming you have one) is actually much more than just a simple database of names and contact info. It's Google's stealth social network. The reason is that the search engine is increasingly utilizing the Gmail contact list as a pseudo web service to power its other applications. It's brilliant because, in the process, Google will turn every service from one that is static to something social.
Google is the first to recognize the power of address books, but they won't be the last. This is something I have written about before - every portal that offers webmail will become a social network.
Tonight we have a new application of this concept to play with in the wild. This one closely follows Google Maps, which took the same approach.
Google Reader became the latest Google service to leverage the Gmail contact database and become more social. The Reader team turned on a new feature that is powered by the Gmail address book. The popular RSS reader now lets you easily see what your friends are sharing from their river of news and allows you to do the same. This turns Google Reader into a social network, complete with profiles - the same found in Google Maps.
This change is small, but significant. It's indicative of how Google (wisely) plans to attack social networking. It is tapping into the Gmail address book and using it to transform all of its static services into on-the-fly communities. Factor in OpenSocial and you can see the beginnings of something big.
Social networking isn't just about a few standalone sites but a bunch of different address books that actually make the entire web more social.
