The latest gossip to fly around the web is that Google is about to throw itself into the social network arena and launch a full competitor to Facebook.

Since Digg founder Kevin Rose, tweeted (since removed) “Ok, umm, huge rumor: Google to launch Facebook competitor very soon ‘Google Me,’ very credible source,” sources have been investigating the rumours and the evidence is starting to pile up towards a launch.

Google is reported to have been conducting focus group research into social networks, looking particularly at usability. In a Q&A session, Adam D’Angelo, a former chief technical officer at Facebook, stated: “This is not a rumour. This is a real project. There are a large number of people working on it. I am completely confident about this.”

A fascinating presentation on The Real Life of Social Networking has appeared online, produced by Paul Adams from the user experience team in Google. It examines how social networks (mostly Facebook) operate online and ways in which they fail to mirror social interactions in the real world: “The problem is that social networks we’re creating online do not match the social networks we already have offline. This creates many problems and a few opportunities.” The impression given throughout is that Google is working on something along the same lines as Facebook but modelled more closely on real-life interactions.

This would not be the first time Google has tried its hand at social networking. Buzz was aimed at linking personal and professional lives through Google Mail but privacy concerns and a lack of innovation hampered its launch. The Orkut social network has been active since 2004 and is extremely popular in Brazil and India but less so in the rest of the world. Google Friend Connect was an attempt to allow users to connect friends together on different websites, which again has failed to make much impact.

With Facebook stacking up over 500 million users, it will be extremely difficult for a newcomer to the scene to mount a credible challenge. Will Google be more successful with Me than past efforts, or will the old privacy concerns rear their head? How easy would you find it to move away from Facebook? Let us know your thoughts below.

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The website also features a secure members area, a merchandise ordering form and has been integrated with Facebook and Twitter where fans may follow news and updates as they happen. It has been launched well ahead of this year’s VOICES concert which will be held next October.

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Sirens ASC is an aquatic sports club with over 500 fully paid up members, one of the largest of its kind in Malta. The club is run by an elected committee which devolves some of its duties and tasks to various sub-committees.

The website was described as having “A new, super-clean look with high-tech underpinnings.”. It will feature prominently the club’s sponsors, contains various photo galleries, latest news and latest match results.

All information, including match results, is managed through the easy-to-use powerful Content Management System, NIUportal.

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The entire album can be found at the official Dark Dog Malta website.

All Content and Images © NIU Ltd

Nearly 5 million “man-hours” were spent playing Pac-Man on Google’s landing page when the search giant temporarily replaced the standard Google logo with a simplistic playable version of Pac-Man.

On May 23, Google offered users the ability to play Pac-Man directly from its home page. It was a special feature to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the iconic arcade game.

According to a study by productivity analyst firm RescueTime, the average Google user spent more than four times longer at Google.com (that is, the amount of time spent on that blank search page before a search was initiated) than they usually do. So, instead of spending 11 seconds there, average time was nearly 50 seconds.

With more than 504 million unique visitors to Google on May 23, the amount of time actually spent there was more than 4.8 million hours. At an assumed user value of $25/hour (which is giving the US too much credit, I think), RescueTime calculated the lost productivity at more than $120 million.

As RescueTime points out, though, the “Insert Coin” button that users had to press was not glaringly obvious (it simply replaced the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button, which most users probably ignore anyway). Thus, the average time spent on Google.com was definitely stifled. The study suggests that as many as 75% of Google users didn’t even know the Pac-Man logo was interactive.

Regardless, employers all over can relax now. The Google home page has been returned to normal.

Click here to view the embedded video.

No mention among the cheering, of course, of the $1 billion Viacom lawsuit, which has led to some less than pretty revelations about how the site may have attained some of its early growth – or whether YouTube is actually profitable yet. Some analysts have said however that YouTube could start contributing to Google’s bottom line this year.