IN THE latest from search engine giant Google, the Mountain View based company is planning to extend to the arena dominated by Facebook and Twitter, by incorporating tweet like add ons into Gmail. These add ons will be unveiled next week and would let people post tweet like messages and thoughts on Gmail.

Right now, Google based Gmail does allow status updates like that in Facebook, through its chats system, but these are very brief.

The move proves that Google plans to be a social media force remain serious. Jeremiah Owyang, partner at Altimeter Group said, “It might look like a minor feature advance, but this is another blow in the war against Facebook.”

Till now, Google has a social networking presence through Orkut, which is highly popular in Brazil and the Sidewiki add on, which allows people to type and share information about websites. However, they haven't made it a social media force and the company is struggling with new ways to get a hold in the niche segment.

There are also rumours of the new system by Google of brining together Gmail, Youtube and Picasa.