Google Aims At Facebook Timeline, Lets Google+ Import All Your Past Social Media Updates

Google has revealed to VentureBeat that its upcoming Google+ APIs will allow the company's social network to do something unusual: It will be able to soak in all your previous social media updates from other services. Called the History API, the system will import updates like text entries, purchases, and imagery from sources like Foursquare and Twitter.

Essentially this is a quick and easy way for Google+ to vampire feed on its users previous social efforts in order to better populate every user's timeline, and is enabled by the full-featured APIs Google's rivals have long operated, even while Google demurred and didn't allow full access to Google+ itself via APIs to third-party apps. Though the History trick may seem trivial, it seems intended to create a flow of information in each user profile that rivals that of Facebook's new Timeline, and it's further evidence that Google is really resting a lot of its hopes, as well as spending quite considerable effort, on Google+.

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