The second is the ability to search for people who are sharing – a feature I’ve wanted for a while. So, ‘scuse me while I go “like” some posts…

There’s going to be a lot of news about this today as Google scoops Facebook’s spotlight (until next week when FB’s up at bat with their “SocialAds” announcement). I’ll be looking at all the news, but I’m interested in viewpoints. Who’s thinking what.

One of the great people I saw and met at PodCampBoston this weekend was Christopher Penn (one of the founders). In a post today, Christopher discusses OpenSocial and how it will aggregate and reference data across participating SN platforms.

If this works, I see this as the ultimate social network aggregator. One profile to rule them all. It’s been the missing link in social media – one that many have tried to address before. Plaxo is doing a fine job – but for some reason I can’t integrate it into my lifestream. But Google, Ning (where I have JaneQuigley.com and others are where I live. So is Facebook. But if Google makes it easier to social network elsewhere – somewhere where my friends have also found it easier and fun to be – why would I stay?

Which is a shame, because I love FB and the way it’s grown the company, my friends, my groups, etc. Not so fond of the vampires, zombies, etc. – you take the good with the bad(evil).

(Via Awaken Your Superhero.)

But – working with Google can be a cautionary tale. Anyone remember Dodgeball? It was one of the first microblogging services, where you could notify your friends (and crushes) where you were. Google also bought them and everyone was just as excited. It soon bacame clear that Dodgeball was not very high on the list of Google’s priorities, development lagged and momentum stopped. Frustrated, in April 2007, Dodgeball’s founders left to pursue other projects.

Now Google’s a smart company and I’m sure learned from that last go round. But before people start pointing to this deal as the "Twitter-killer" – let’s take a step back and reflect on history. Jaiku has already put the breaks on new users (you can still be invited by a friend) and are working with the Google engineers to develop a stronger service. Great – but the ball’s in Google’s court, not Jaiku’s, so we’ll have to see how quickly they turn this around.

Twitter will be fine, better even by competition.

Robert Scoble thinks that this isn’t about Twitter at all, it’s about Facebook. I think he’s right. With Google’s Orkut 2.0 coming on November 5th, it’s a whole new ballgame.

And maybe, just maybe, it’ll correct all of those scary, scary Facebook (and Facebook application)valuations. It makes my Bubble 1.0-survivor heart tremble.

BTW – another reason I love Twitter – Brian Solis of PR 2.0 fame, put out the following Twitter about the Jaiku story:

"Jaiku is a client of my agency FutureWorks, I’m hearing from writers that can’t reach google. DM me if u need anything and r on deadline." Awesome. He also thinks that Jaiku is more than a microblogging service, that its more of a lifestream.

I’ll defintely use Jaiku more in the future weeks and see if I can find the flow and integrate it in my life more. My friend Patrick is a fan – I’ve been putting it off, but now I’ll have to see if I agree.

A lot of people blogged about this today as a new idea. Danny Sullivan’s perspective is that these settings have been in place for some time and they are just being changed to a new default to “announce” them. He also walks through how some profiles are making it over the “Walled Garden” to Google.

Haven’t seen that happen with mine yet – guess I’ll see what happens in a month.

EDIT: I was wrong – my Facebook profile is showing up on page two of Google listings for my name (after one of my blogs, LinkedIn, Jaiku and Mashable)

Danny also talks about Google’s Orkut Social Network, which I haven’t looked at yet. Anyone? Bueller?

(Via Danny Sullivan on Facebook .)