Everyone Googles themselves.

So, can Google harness that compulsion in order to compete with Facebook on WebID?

Off the bat, they grant each provable user identity (no BigTool4U) the ability to grab the first Google result in any search on their name.  Register, prove who you are, own the top spot.

Local filtering would be next, then work, school, etc.  So you could search, "Morgan Warstler, Austin TX" to find my Google Me page… assuming more than one poor bastard has my guttural Germanic name.

Is that enough?  Jesus, its the first result in Google, you’d at least have to curate it!

Can Google then box out Facebook?  Force it into sub-id status like LinkedIn and Twitter all linked from your Google Me page, grabbing as much data as you’ll share from each account?

Can Google teach users the way to find my Facebook or Twitter page is to go to my Google Me page?  There’s certainly some power there.

Maybe the messaging is Google Me is your public personae, all but forcing Facebook to accept its position (that we all prefer anyway) as your private circle.  The power of Facebook has always been, "its the real person" – theres no reason Google can’t deliver that certainty as well.

What makes me re-find all my friends?  Does it need to?  Google definitely has already indexed a number of my Facebook connections.  Maybe it doesn’t need too.

What about all those damn Like buttons?

Personally, what would get me to use Google’s version would be if they let me index my likes as my own private data profile that I own, and then split revenue with me if I let them access it for ad targeting outside of search.

If Google partnered with me on Google Me to maximize the value of my attention, I’d get very attentive to their like button.