Google Adds Collaborative Web Conferencing?

As the days go by it seems like Google is delivering extremely scalable, easy to use (yet butt-ugly) services designed to attract as many humans as possible to use them. The more we connect through Google services, the more tracking and analytics they’ll have in their Database of Intention (to use a term coined by John Batelle in The Search).

Appears that Google’s acquisition of Marratech   (UPDATE: they only acquired the Marratech web conferencing software) is an internal use acquisition (wink-wink-nudge-nudge) but I agree with Pete Cashmore that it’s most likely designed to add to the productivity suite they’re building with the alleged Microsoft Office killer (i.e., Google Docs & Spreadsheets; Google Presentations) and their likely Sharepoint killer (i.e., Jotspot). Add to that what I’m viewing as "table stakes" to be in the collaboration game — screen sharing and conferencing with voice, video, etc. — and you have one helluva hub that will attract we moths to the Google flame.

Add to that the build-out of what Eric Schmidt dubbed "the Google supercomputer" at the Web 2.0 Expo and you can see what they’re building and their strategy becomes clear: they’re not just collecting and delivering means to place the world’s information at our fingertips, they’re also giving us the tools to mix and mash it around together as a collective…

…and insert ads at every appropriate junction, custom tailored to each of us since they’ll be able to track an amazing wealth of data. Perhaps it’s time for the ’sphere to pressure Google to open up and let us at least have some level of understanding of what data they’re compiling on us.