Comments on: Google scared of Facebook? Puh-leeze

By: Alexander van Elsas

Alexander van Elsas — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:52:06 +0000

Hi Mathew, I was going to write a lengthy comment to Josh but I couldn’t comment on the article at the Fortune site itself. But I agree with you that he lacks substance in his arguments. Actually, he has gotten it all backwards. Facebook is NO match for Google. In my opinion Google has been working on a good strategy to become the social web OS, I call it “Google everywhere” for lack of a better name. They have Orkut which drives traffic (especially in Asia, think (payed) mobile services here), they obtained Jaiku adding mobile presence features to social networking sites like Orkut. They have a major stake in RSS with Google reader (and mobile RSS with Jaiku), they can leverage many different platforms for ads, whereas Facebook has only 1 closed system. Note that if Facebook will try to leverage their user-created network with ad pressure, the users will not like that. Google is working on the Gphone, a direct attack on the Microsoft mobile platform, there is talk of a Google PC, need we go on…. Forget Facebook. They won’t be able to monetize worth $15Bln (they do about $30mln a year now right, which is ridiculously low for such a large user base). If interested, I wrote about the Google strategy earlier:
http://vanelsas.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/facebook-will-be-no-match-for-google/

By: Charlie

Charlie — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 06:17:17 +0000

Facebook is a big flash in the pan in my opinion. I haven’t quite worked out what will replace it yet but something will for sure. All those apps are so annoying. I haven’t found one yet which is actually useful.

By: Steve Spalding

Steve Spalding — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 05:48:54 +0000

Well said. If I hear one more person tell me that Facebook is going to kill [insert] my head will explode.

By: antje wilsch

antje wilsch — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 05:26:00 +0000

I read that too and laughed all the way to my meagre appartment to work on my dream of hitting it big time with my start-up too :)
funny article Matt, haven’t heard you be that blunt in a bit now.
~!Antje