It's funny, google is trying to create a new social network (buzz, orkut, wave, ...) and they have Google Groups that are real communities (spam appart) that only need some care.
I agree about Google Groups getting ignored; it would be nice if the eventual Google Competitor to Fridge was built on an upgrade of Groups. Perhaps one that split off the Usenet part of Google Groups completely; mixing in proprietary Google Groups and Usenet via Google wasn't ever a good idea.
one thing we are rolling out soon is gmail and google group contact import.
The point of The Fridge is that it is different to Facebook. That's the only way to succeed.
Google has many active Fridges in Groups, it just needs to make the management of Groups much more simple, as the Fridge does.
But, if The Fridge succeeds (I'm not sure about this), then it would be too late for Google, but this is only relevant to Google.