Why Google Is Sh**ting Itself About Facebook

There is a titanic battle brewing between Facebook and Google that will probably start to become public over the next year. It started by Facebook getting a lot of attention over surpassing Google in terms of traffic but has increased this weekend with the news that Google seems to be working on an exact clone of the Facebook platform. It started off with Kevin Rose tweeting about it on Saturday (he was immediately forced to take down that tweet so that tells you that this is very much a reality) and was followed up by confirmation by former Facebook CTO and a post by Michael Arrington on Techcrunch (although he is clearly under pressure not to reveal too much as the post is largely cryptic and doesn’t spell out too much information). So lets say that this Facebook clone is a reality and Google do launch it within the next few months. Would it work? Can Google steal the traction back and just how did we get to this battle between the world’s largest search engine and world’s largest social network?

The Like Button Started It All

Google were always worried about social, their attempts with tools like Orkut, Google Wave and Google Buzz show that they are keen to move in to this space. Their urgency to get in to this market though recently is not because they want to compete with social networks but because they see Facebook as a direct competitor to their own business…search. The biggest single threat that Google faces to 97% of it’s business (the amount of revenue Google generates via search ads) is the Facebook “like” button. For those of you familiar with search you will know that the Page Rank algorithm has been at the heart of Google’s success. A large part of that algorithm is the amount of incoming links a site has but the problem with those links is that they are all coming from websites and people who know how to build links (small proportion of the population). What Facebook have done with their like button is have something that is already spreading on to thousands of websites and users are embracing immediately as they know and trust Facebook. This one simple button is allowing Facebook to gather the most incredible and accurate information on users and their personal likes. It is also allowing Facebook to serve pages, websites and crucially adverts to people in a hyper targeted way that even Google can’t do as well. Facebook’s search to date is pretty poor but make no mistake the search of the future is far more social and based on friends recommendations and Facebook will be very much at the fore of that race.

Google Are Engineers

Google are brilliant at sorting information and making things work. They deliver fantastic mail clients, great collaborative tools and the best most effective search today. Their efforts at building something social though have not worked to date. Buzz was a spectacular failure and they just never seem to have understood the social space. They seem to think like engineers and nothing they have built really works well socially or looks beautiful. They need to make something that looks more stylish than what they currently offer so as it can appeal to the masses. It’s one thing getting all us industry people and geeks on to social networks but Google needs to be focusing in on building something that appeals to the 500 million regular Joe’s who are on Facebook to connect with their friends and family and know nothing about technology. I’m just not sure that Google as a company knows how to think socially like this, just look at Google Wave which was full of amazing technology but just ended up confusing us all.

The Android Element Gives It A Chance

The one big factor that Google has at its advantage is the fact that they own one of the largest mobile platforms out there, Android. Out of the 500 Million users Facebook has over a quarter already use Facebook via their mobile device. As smart phones get better there is no doubt that we are all accessing social networks, taking photos, recording video and sharing our location while on the go. Latest reports show that Google are selling 5 million android phones per month which is a huge advantage for them if they did ever have a semi decent social network that they could pre-load on to their operating system. Hopefully Google will be smart enough to see that mobile is their one big advantage here and will make that a key part of their new offering.

Privacy Issues A Good Time To Pounce?

Facebook have a big problem with users at the moment who always seem to be up in arms about privacy. The big issue here is that Facebook started as a closed network focused on privacy but has slowly moved to a more open network to please advertisers and maximise the potential of things like social search. The service is in effect changing in front of our eyes from a very private network to a social network where the settings are defaulted to public. The opportunity for Google is to come in and offer a secure platform where users’ information being kept private is the number one priority. The balance that Google will need to try and strike though is to keep some information public to help their search results while offering the privacy that Facebook users used to have and currently crave.

I’d Rather My Information Was On Google

I’ve had lots of private information on Google for years. I have whole business plans stored on their servers, financial projections in their spreadsheets, confidential emails and personal photos all stored on their servers and as far as I know that information has never been exposed to anybody. Google has no interest in sharing that information, they have earned my trust. On the other hand although I use Facebook and see it as a phenomenal platform for clients I can see what Facebook are up to. They want to know every single little thing about us and what we do socially. They want to plot our social graph as they say themselves. As a user if Google did offer a more private solution and offered all the same functionality then that is something that I might have to consider looking at very seriously.

Will Google Facebook Clone Be A Success?

In a word…No. Just like Wave and Buzz this will generate an insane amount of hype when it is officially announced but Facebook have such a huge lead that it is going to be tough. Google do have advantages like Android and Facebook’s privacy weakness that they can pounce on but getting 500 million users from scratch is going to be tough. Google are very aware of Facebook’s rising power and they have to be admired for trying to counter it with a new product of their own but I just don’t think that Google have the ability to build great social products. It’s just not what they do well! Some of the key techie influencers might start moving over to a more trusted Google platform but getting the mums and dads who have just arrived on Facebook and are perfectly happy with their social network and have no idea this stuff is going on is going to be the hard thing to do. Facebook are in my opinion just way too far out in front to be caught and will start to cause Google some pretty major problems in their own core business of search very soon!

About SimplyZesty

Simply Zesty are a Social Media Agency located in Dublin, Ireland who offer a range of Social Media Services (including Facebook Marketing).