Google’s move towards social unification continues. Today they have added social components to Google Maps, including user profiles – the same profiles that are used for the recently launched ‘Shared Stuff‘ (though they aren’t linked up yet). It now appears that they are simply putting up the foundation via all of their different properties before the lay on ‘the roof’ – that is, your one Google profile that all of your activity flows through. Google seems to be simply placing a social network on top of their existing properties, which is a very good idea – why build a new Facebook-killer when all the components for one are already in place?

Not to toot my own horn (but we all know that I really love to do that), but 10 months ago I pretty much nailed exactly what Google now appears to be doing:

I would not at all be surprised to see these user profiles (which have an icon place holder that is the exact same as the Google Talk icon placeholder and now Gmail contact list icon placeholder) consolidated as one giant Google user profile for each user that is used for every Google Service they use…including Google Reader…you see where I’m going here?

I can’t wait for these profiles to roll out to other services such as Google Reader – and if they are able to merge ‘Shared Stuff’ with user’s Google Reader data, things are going to get really interesting.

Read more about it at Google Operating System, mathewingram.com, and Screenwerk.