The biggest surprise in social networking is the missing player at the table - Google. And if the user profile page is the backbone of all social networking, then what would a Google profile page look like?

Google should expand from its core competency, which is still its strength as a search engine. YouTube fits well into the Google empire because users rely on it for video search. GoogleNews is relied upon like a library for stories. Profiles should be built on search.

First, the Google profile would spider your MySpace page to create links to "friends" and their Google profile pages. Instant social network! To be sure it got everyone, Google would spider Facebook and even Friendster, and all of the developing smaller networks across all of the varied niches. In essence, Google becomes your master profile, displaying all information you post across the Internet in one place.

Google would spider your LinkedIn profile and display your resume and connections back at your Google home page. If you have a blog (or two) or a Twitter feed, then the Google profile would display all your posts on your profile.

Take this thought process a few steps further. I've said before that newspapers should retain all feedback you provide on their site. For example, a comment posted in response to a story should be stored on your profile. Google should do the same but for all comments you post anywhere on the Web.

The market demands an aggregate profile for a number of reasons, but here are the two most important needs that any successful profile aggregator must meet:

1) I've got all these profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Friendster . . . the list is only growing as new, niche networks sprout. How do I, the user, quickly update basic information across all of my profiles? Google becomes the master account.

2) Perhaps Google can become the central bank of all registration. Instead of thousands of sites keeping individual names and logins, your newspaper.com authenticates users against a Google API. It's a win-win. Users get to maintain just one username and password, and the sites sync with your master profile to make updating information easy. No more useless registration walls, since Google can automatically sign you in wherever you travel.

If Google is serious about future online advertising, it will need the behavioral targeting that only a central registration system can provide.

There are endless applications here, but it's all dependent on Google being able to identify you by name or username and then posting everything on its aggregate profile page. If anyone can do that, it's Google. So start thinking about what you would do to promote news whenever Google (or Yahoo) creates an aggregate profile.