Make no mistake, Google is going to pull all of their services into one big social network eventually, they're just doing it a little bit at a time. Today we have Google 'Shared Stuff', which is basically the same thing as 'Shared Items' for Google Reader, except that you can tag any page on the Internet using a simple bookmarklet rather than having to subscribe to the feed within Reader and then sharing it. It is also essentially Del.icio.us, just not quite as robust - yet.

One can't help but think this is the first step in Google's push toward the social networking goals they laid out in their leaked video from the Google Reader team last week.

While the service does seem a bit buggy (the bookmarlet pop-up doesn't always load up on the first click, and the profile editor has some issues with URLs), it's also - in typical Google fashion - extremely simple to use. One could argue that Del.icio.us has a bit of a learning curve for newcomers if they're not using the bookmarklet for it, Google Shared Items does not because there is no option but using the bookmarklet.

And the bookmarklet is great - it's a lot like Facebook's bookmarklet, but with more functionality (though Facebook's is prettier...). Not only can you post to your shared page or email, you have the option to post to any number of social networking/sharing sites including Digg, Netscape (now Propeller), Reddit, and the like. You can even post to Facebook (so do you really need the Facebook bookmarklet anymore? - it does lose some of the Facebook bookmarklet functionality like posting a thumbnail image, which this bookmarklet can do if you post to your Google Shared page).

Each Google user gets their own public shared page complete with profile and the option to subscribe to that user's Shared Stuff RSS feed. The page also show what other people you know (presumably those in your Gmail address book) are sharing and links to their profiles.

Most significant to me is that there is a global 'Most Popular Shared Stuff' page showing the items that the most users have shared across the sevice. If Google would just do something like this page for Google Reader, it would be huge. What are they waiting for? Perhaps they are waiting to merge this new Shared Stuff with the Shared page on Google Reader - creating the ultimate Website/RSS bookmarking web app. Now that's an idea, and one I could definitely see happening.

Yesterday Digg, today Google - the social revolution continues...