Is Google Launching Own Social Networking Site?

Google will soon launch a social network, blogs are saying, and it may be called Google Circles. The tech blog The Next Web first reported the news Friday, noting that the product would launch at Google’s I/O conference in May; ReadWriteWeb followed with an assertion that the new service would be announced at South By Southwest. Google knocked down the latter claim, but refused to “comment on rumor and speculation” about the service itself, the Telegraph reports.

Reports are conflicting: the founder of O’Reilly Media tweeted that he’d “seen Google Circles, and it looks awesome.” But at All Things Digital, Liz Gannes writes that no such product is “even under development.” One of the reported heads of the project told Gannes he “didn’t know what (the story) was talking about.” Meanwhile, at a developer event, Google insiders said the company isn’t launching a social network. (More Google Circles stories.)