The whispers that started a couple of days ago regarding Google’s “Facebook killer”, Google Me, are getting louder and louder – so much so that YouWager have started taking bets on the roll out of the new SNS and what impact it will have on Mark’s empire.

Digg Founder, Kevin Rose, got the ball rolling with this tweet:

‘Ok, umm, huge rumor: Google to launch facebook competitor very soon “Google Me“, very credible source’

which was further stoked by Quora founder Anthony d’Angelo (who is an ex-Facebook Chief Technology Officer) who responded to the rumour on the Q&A site:

‘Here is what I’ve pieced together from some reliable sources:

• This is not a rumor. This is a real project. There are a large number of people working on it. I am completely confident about this.
• They realised that Buzz wasn’t enough and that they need to build out a full, first-class social network. They are modeling it off of Facebook.
• Unlike previous attempts (before Buzz at least), this is a high-priority project within Google.
• They had assumed that Facebook’s growth would slow as it grew, and that Facebook wouldn’t be able to have too much leverage over them, but then it just didn’t stop, and now they are really scared.

Techcrunch’s Michael Arrington suggests Google should dismiss any moral standards and ethics and just purely clone the Facebook model.

“Enough with the fancy pants Google Buzz Twitter-Facebook-Yelp killer. They need to raise the white flag and just copy Facebook right down to the details. Otherwise the war is over before Google even got to the battlefield.”

Can it be done and if so, how? With over a half a billion users, Facebook is a giant and is so far ahead in the SNS game that it makes you wonder why Google would even bother. Well, they kind of have to – Google is on top of Facebook in a couple of ways (eg search marketing), but for how much longer? Facebook are starting to get into the marketing area by collecting user data and pinpointing exactly what their users might want to see, which is, perhaps, a more effective way of marketing.

Google have had several attempts at cracking the social networking market – think Wave, Buzz and Orkut – and have failed dismally. It seems they need to create a monster, something that not only equals the enormity of Facebook, but greatly improves on the issues that Mark and Co have had to deal with, especially in the last few months. If Google can iron out these creases, if they can improve on the Facebook model, there is a strong possibility Mark’s army will have a major battle on their hands.