How can Google beat Twitter at the social game?

Quick answer - Embrace blogs & RSS feeds.
Long answer follows...

Twitter is a micro-blog

The numero uno use-case on Twitter is that users publish content (opinions, links, etc.) and broadcast it to whoever wants to listen. (The content, for some unknown reason, is limited to 140 chars.)

There is a well established & easy way to publish content online – hosted blogging platforms. There is a well documented & well supported open standard for broadcasting one's content – RSS feeds. No wonder Twitter was called a micro-blogging platform when it started out.


The other two significant use-cases of Twitter are:

• The social interaction - A user can come to know when someone else happens to talk about him. In the Twitter world these are called @mentions.
• The ego booster - A user can get to know, to some degree of accuracy, who is listening to his broadcasts. In the Twitter world, these are called followers.

There is no easy or obvious way to achieve these right now. But given Google's strengths & some clever extension of the RSS standard [1] even these can be made technically possible & easy of the user.

So, who owns the largest blogging platform?

 Google does.

Now, let's put 2 & 2 together

• Google should roll Blogger & Reader into one kick-ass product - aimed at the masses, not the geeks. Along with a web-based version, they should integrate this new product into various browsers (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) to drive adoption.
• Adopt the RSS standard (with some extensions [1]). Give first-class treatment to RSS feeds in Google Chrome & push other browsers to do the same.
• Put some sexy marketing into promoting this as an open ecosystem. 
• Users can install + control their own blogging platforms & RSS readers.
• Other competitors can build competing products and use open standards to be part of this open ecosystem - much like all of Internet.

But what's in it for Google?

Two words - Advertising revenue.

• More content on blogs hosted at Blogger = More content to monetize via Google AdSense
• More content on blogs hosted elsewhere = More content outside the walled garden of Twitter to monetize via Google AdSense (is there any other viable option?)
• More people reading RSS feeds via Google Reader = Opportunity to serve ads on the Reader interface based on user's interests
• More people publishing RSS feeds via FeedBurner = Opportunity to serve ads on other (non Google-owned) RSS readers

Frankly, Google is late to the party. Their attempts at building a closed ecosystem have failed. Their only option is to embrace the openness of the web & bring content outside the walled gardens of Twitter (and Facebook). Organize & monetize it the way they've been doing till now.

Out in the open. Out in wild wild web. Where Google is king.

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[1] RSS Extensions

These are broad approaches for enabling the the more 'social' aspects of Twitter via blogs & RSS feeds. These are obviously not the best ways.

• Ability to view list of "followers" - Extend the RSS spec to include subscriber identity in the RSS GET request. A standard URL (say /id) on the subscriber's own website/blog should serve as the subscriber's identity. At regular intervals the publisher's blogging platform can ping all identity URLs seen regularly in RSS GET requests to re-confirm the subscription (and filter spoofing attacks).
• Ability to @mention someone - In the new scheme of things @mentions should be nothing more than back-links - either to the person's main website/blog OR to his identity URL. While composing posts, the blogging platform should make it DEAD SIMPLE to create backlinks to someone's identity URL.
• Ability to get notified when someone @mentions you - There are two possible ways to do this and it depends on the implementation of the blogging platforms:
• Your blogging platform should crawl the web to look for backlinks to you and present them to you in your private timeline (news feed). It should crawl the blogs of your subscribers/followers/friends with higher frequency than the rest of the wild wild web. This is where Google's product with kick the ass of any other product.
• The RSS-Identity URL should have the ability to receive pingbacks. As soon as someone @mentions you (creates a backlink to you) his/her blogging platform should ping your identity URL with the URL of the post that he/she just created. Your blogging platform would then fetch the post and present it to you on your private timeline (news feed).