Google Making Whole Web Social Network

Google is unveiling a new service that could effectively turn the whole Web into a social network, the Washington Post reports. Friend Connect allows visitors to participating sites to meet and interact with others who visit the same site. "Wherever people go on the Web, they want to have their friends with them, and this makes it possible," says one Google worker.

Many see this new development as a long-awaited step that will take social networking out of the province of mainstays like Facebook and MySpace, which have been criticized for only allowing users to connect while at their respective sites. "This is the evolution of the walled garden to the social Web," says an industry insider. (More Google stories.)