A week ago I wrote about Google’s complete and utter failure in integrating its contact management system into some of its newer social capabilities such as those now found on Google Reader. Today the issue is blowing up on the front page of Slashdot – where hundreds of users are expressing their displeasure with this new social feature. This page [update: link was moved here] has a good roundup of some of the comments.

While some (I think correctly) note that Google isn’t necessarily doing anything wrong here with the ’sharing’ feature – ’sharing’ an item is obviously meant to share it publicly despite what some are trying to say – this feature is managing to expose a major flaw in Google’s contact system. There is a problem when Google starts adding contacts to your ‘Friends’ shared items’ drop down even if they may not be your friends – in fact they could very well be someone you are enemies with and have simply exchanged some nasty emails and IMs with. As long as there was an exchange of words, they’ll be on your contact list and thus likely on your new ‘Friends shared items’ list. Ridiculous.

Could they see this information anyway? If they knew where to find it, sure, but this is feature is called a “Friends’ shared items” list and basically shoves your shares in their face on Google Reader (until they block you). It’s a nice thought by Google to try and automate this process, but it simply is too open to mistakes and worse, way too difficult to add real friends that you may not have had conversations with over Gmail. It’s a simple fix, just allow users to opt to manually manage their lists with regards to adding and removing ‘friends’.

Google needs to fix this system ASAP. They have an official response here – and again while they are technically correct about the ’shared items’, they are clearly missing the larger point that people want to be in complete control over who their friends are.

I have a feeling we’ll be seeing some sort of new contact management system rolling out from Google in the coming weeks if for no other reason than the “customer is always right”. Social Networking is clearly going to be a big part of Google’s 2008 plan, and a social Google Reader has the potential to be perhaps their most powerful social tool – but they need to remember the ’social’ part.