Google vs Facebook

Recently, I've been hearing lot of chatters around Google and Facebook butting heads against each other. They are both fighting to retain and increase time user spends on their sites for a simple reason: internet ads revenue. Facebook has been eating away at Google's bottom line by serving Facebook ads on the side, and it's understandable that Google sees Facebook as real threat.



But Facebook seems to be after bigger pie: providing more capable search using social network connections using their half billion (and growing) user base. Facebook just have been awarded patent for applying social network to rank search results yesterday. This means if Facebook can claim patent protection on applying social network connections.

Let me give a concrete example of what this means. Suppose I reviewed wireless router a few months ago, and clicked Facebook connect 'like' button on the model that I reviewed. Say my friend Larry is in market for new wireless router, and searches for 'wireless router' in Facebook. Now Facebook can use the social network connection between Larry and me, and rank the wireless router that I reviewed higher than the rest of results. Now you can see why Google might see Facebook as direct competitor.

Google, on the other hand, is not standing still. They launched Google Buzz which has so far been unsuccessful attempt at entering Social Network arena, but have been enhancing the capability by adding voice call features recently. Just last Friday Google announced that they brought Angstro team on board. Angstro have been working on enhancing popular Google Alerts by incorporating LinkedIn connections to bubble up the most relevant results.

It is clear that more head butting to continue between Google and Facebook. It's unclear, however, who will emerge as winner at the moment.