Rumors that Google wants to take on Facebook with its own social network, possibly codenamed Google Me, have been around for months. The latest one suggests that Google will launch such a service at its developer conference this year (May 10 and May 11): Google I/O, according to The Next Web.

Speculation has pointed to various recent offerings from the company, including Google Profiles, as to what the service could look like. Still, we have yet to see any leaked screenshots or any real details beyond talk that it such a website is coming (often countered by talk that the project has been killed).

In September 2010, Google CEO Eric Schmidt suggested last year that a "social layer" was coming to all the company's products. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has always been critical of such moves, saying that a social layer does not cut it: a service needs to be built from the ground up with social in mind.

Less than two months from now, we may find out if Google has been working on its own Facebook killer. Late last year, former Google employee, Gmail creator, and FriendFeed founder Paul Buchheit explained why it's so hard for the company to create a successful social network like Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare.