Google, the leader of all search engines, has recently announced a number of moves that it is making in response to the skyrocketing importance of social networking such as Facebook, and the requirement for companies to use social marketing and social mobile techniques for their ecommerce.
Its largest move in reaction to this knowledge was the creation of the new Google+, which brings together many of its existing services into a collection of social networking that accesses a significant amount of user information. Grouping with friends and sharing text or video chats, recommendations, photos, news, and other social features have led those at Google+ to be familiar to current users of Facebook, though Google`s angle toward social networking is entirely different from that of Facebook.
While Google uses complex algorithms and data collection to function through its established search and advertising business, Facebook is built on a foundation of allowing users to interact through interests and functionality.
Facebook’s interactivity allows users to connect with one another through established and evolving social graphs, where Google’s is based on individual (instead of group) functionality within enormous structures such as gmail, search, and the photo app, Picasa.
Though the two social networking platforms may appear to be similar, Facebook continues to be “sticky” for users, who are settled there and don’t seem to be inclined to move toward this latecomer to the online social scene.
That said, Google still intends to try to absorb half of Facebook’s current social networking market, as it can connect itself with Chrome (used by a quarter of the current browser market), has an app store that charges 25 percent less than iTunes at Apple, and boasts a privacy policy that they have designed to be solid and responsive, where Facebook has been linked with privacy struggles.
