Google Declares War on Facebook

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Getty Images (2) After the search giant upgraded its social-networking tools yesterday, Douglas Rushkoff says its battle with Facebook might come with collateral damage: your real-life friendships.

To Google, it’s just a new, relatively minor set of upgrades to one of its many applications. To Facebook, it’s a declaration of war. Google wants in on “social,” and the search giant may just have the size, weight, and leverage to take it.

But a scorched-earth battle over our social networks may leave casualties in its wake, particularly if we start to look at our friends the way either of these companies do.

Google announced this week that it is putting a few new bells and whistles on its Friend Connect software. Users visiting sites that have the application installed will be able to fill out little profiles of themselves and see the profiles of others who have been there. Presumably, regular visitors of the same sites will seek each other out based on shared opinions and preferences. And make friends. Think of it as Facebook functionality without the Facebook.

Of course, Facebook has been working on basically the same thing, Facebook Connect, for about the same amount of time. And while Facebook can’t claim to have come up with the idea of putting a social shell over the otherwise non-social sites of the Web, the company did feel relatively safe as the Internet’s social leader. Social is its turf, and a realm in which Google has yet to make a real dent. Google may own our data, but Facebook owns our social networks.

Each service has its advantages. Google’s is easier to install—in fact, the company automatically turned it on for every site using Blogger. Facebook’s version is a bit more transparent in its privacy policies, and feels like a bit less strange to use since Facebook is already the place and brand through which so many of us do social networking. Letting people be their Facebook selves on a Web site makes some intuitive sense.

The real difference between the two services is the intention of the companies behind them. Facebook has extended its functionality onto the Web in order to draw us back onto Facebook. The more we use Facebook’s apps to find and connect to other people out on the Web, the more committed we become to our profiles, walls, and posts back on Facebook. Google doesn’t have a networking hub to draw us into, so what’s in it for the search giant?

Why of course, as with everything Google does, the real goal is more and better targeted advertising. Indeed, the most important (but last to be mentioned) upgrade to Google’s Friend Connect is a feature that allows Web sites to target advertisements to individuals based on their Friend Connect profiles. No, Google isn’t really providing us access to each other. It’s providing advertisers with better access to each of us.

So who is going to win? Google, of course. And it’s not because the company is better at social. It’s because Google is better at making money, and helping others do so.

Putting Facebook’s application on your site only helps your visitors connect with others who have visited. If you’re selling or publicizing something, and you’re lucky, maybe they’ll even talk about how great your products are, and then broadcast parts of their conversation back to their “walls” on Facebook.

Putting Google’s application on your site means your ads could work better and you’ll get more money.

View as Single Page 12 Back to Top November 4, 2009 | 11:02pm Facebook | Twitter | Digg | | Emails | print Google, Internet, Facebook, Business, Internet Social Networking, Facebook Connect, Google Social Networking, Friend Connect, Douglas Rushkoff, Blogger (–) Show Replies Collapse Replies Sort Up Sort Down sort by date: roadhunter

This is incredibly misleading. The majority of Facebook users are not even aware of Facebook Connect. These two products target a tiny minority of the internet population. Unless Google comes up with a site to compete with Facebook directly, they don't stand a chance.

I hope google succeeds in this, I'm not a particularly big fan of Facebook and would more then welcome an alternative. Between all the horrific apps that nag you to the barely there revenue model that forces them to make a nuisance of themselves (since they don't have alternate ways of getting money like Google) Facebook is a blight people deal with because its what everyone else uses. I would greatly prefer a system based on content and context instead of meaningless wall and status update junk, lets hope it takes off.

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Shushannah Walshe was a reporter and producer at the Fox News Channel from August 2001 until the end of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Scott Conroy has worked as a campaign reporter and is currently a digital journalist for CBS News.

Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.

Douglas Rushkoff, a professor of media studies at The New School University and producer and correspondent for the PBS Frontline Digital Nation project, is the author of numerous books, including Cyberia, ScreenAgers, Media Virus, and, most recently, Life Inc., released this month by Random House.

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Google Declares War on Facebook

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