Google Profile + Social Circle = My Online Demise

OK, so maybe the title is somewhat of an exageration, but the recent discussion around the launch of Google’s social network application Social Circles (you can read about it here and here) has got me nervous about how I’m going to integrate this with my existing Google products and reopened the old Profiles wound.

I started my Google life with a number of different Gmail accounts, in those days I wanted different addresses for different things like newsletter sign-ups and email blast tests and competitor analysis and my personal life… the list was long and I might have had about 7 or 8 @gmail.com at a certain point. From these I chose one to become my main Google Account and this allowed me access to other products like Analytics and Reader. Finally about three years ago I added my own domain to the mix and became a Google Apps (for your domain) fan – but therein lies the rub – today I have in essence two Google Accounts, one attached to my apps settings and one to everything else and these of course each have a profile associated with them that I try my best to hold together.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbs=prfl%3A1&q=lex+bradshaw-zanger

I’ve given up anything beyond what I can organise on these two profiles because I need bits and pieces of each – there is no way currently for Google to merge them, and I don’t want to delete or hide either. What makes me really nervous, and hence my online demise, would be the launch of a Google Social Circle product (you can see some hints at it here) as I’m really don’t want to start duplicating even more – I’m pretty good with Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter (the accounts are clean and easy to find), but this could be a big mess in the making.

So please Google please, help me fix my multiple profiles before you launch Social Circles?

Thanks!