Facebook vrs. Google

Google is traditionally known as a search engine and Facebook as a social networking site. Both companies work on different areas of the Internet, but with the desire to attract more people and advertising they have clashed and will continue to do so. Facebook has recently announced that users will be able to obtain a ‘facebook.com’ message service very similar to an email account. Although Mark Zuckerberg clearly states that this is ‘not an email account’ the message services comes really close to one. It will enable a much greater way of communication between users and will increase the amount of time spent on the site.

This message service will give users a chance to interact in an even more personal level by bringing emails, messages, sms’ and chats into one message. People will no longer have threads, but entire messages as wholes saved up on their Facebook page. This of course raises questions about privacy, since during the convention people were told that the messages were going to be saved permanently onto the Facebook server.

Internet users have increased their amount of time spent on Facebook drastically, which shows that people are using both Google and Facebook in an almost equitable way. This of course might change a bit now that Facebook has rolled its ‘email’ service; although they do not expect users to shut down their Yahoo or Gmail accounts, they believe Facebook’s messages –email, will be more fun and more valuable for the user to experience.

Just like Facebook plays hard and continues to push Google, this company has had its share in trying to compete with Facebook. They too have attempted to undertake the social networking world by creating Orkut. Both companies go back and forth competing and trying to gain more Internet, user and market share to the point where both Facebook and Orkut blocked its users from transferring friend’s contact information from Facebook to Orkut or vice versa. This is a battle that will continue through the years to come.