google only has one success story and that is google.com nothing else. Google are just creating enemies now by replicating peoples business models and doing a bad job of it. I and many other still use hotmail and yahoo instaed of gmail. I dont care how much beetr it is just dont use it. Same as froogle, google base etc... The opnly thing google will succeed in is tools for their main search engine, adsense, adwords etcc... anything traffic related. Or they just buy stuff that already working. I am dissapointed with google initiative. Oh I forgot about google maps, very useful (I do like it). But still just a copy of map.search.ch Google should concentrate on marketing and advertising to help buisnesses grow, this is what they have so much data about and could really help people with. When adwords came along and keyword research tools people started opening businesses in areas they knew nothing about but knew there was lots of business waiting for them. Genius its win win for everyone. Facebook is good it does the trick and there is no way in hell that I will replicate everything I do on there somewhere else. Google, get back to being market leaders instead of followers!
The only way they can use their money and power in this scenario is to offer money to the people who USE facebook (then I might be tempted heh)! The problem for Google is a social network site is exactly that... its social!! Its about people and their network of friends and not about customers who can be brought by better service/price etc! You will go where all your mates go so why would you move to something the that basically offers the same when what you have is already up and running well. Unless facebook mess up badly and p*ss off their users OR Google can come up with a drastically different offering thats will entice people away from facebook its just not gonna work. I think their only option will be to buy out facebook same as they did youtube - I'd imagine they have the $$ to do a buy out
I can't believe they all sold out like that... in the blink of an eye. I vote facebook. This calls for:
I really hope Microsoft and Google would get out of the way and give some breathing space to the others. Let Face Book, Friendster etc get a piece of the social network pie.
Google should definitely keep their dirty hands out. The will now control something toooooo large and it's dangerous. they already have their hands in everything else.
Sounds interesting.......I think this will hurt Facebook. Barrier to entry for other social networks will be much lower and niche communities will thrive. Facebook are going to have to decide whether they open up their social graph or not and, if they don't, sooner or later people are likely to move away....
Why do you all think google will win? Thier site Okura or whatever it is called got no where. just cause its google doesnt mean its good.....
It's orkut and it's mostly south america from what I've read. That's just it... they can't stick out their own site so they got everyone in their bed and started a "all of us against facebook" thing. It reminds me of the high school movies where the bullies all gain up like cowards against the one new guy.
does any one know orkut.co is owned by google and is very popular in india and brazil its real fun with indians
I think that most people here are not even caught up with the story. So here goes the tale. Remember what made Google the King of the Internet? Simply because there was a greater demand in a Search Engine, then Bill's usual OS. Recently, Internet has seen an increased demand in Social Networking. If neither Microsoft, Google or Yahoo get their butts into Social Networking, they will most definitely loose their hands on internet. (same reason to why google paid big-daddy $$ for youtube, it's predicted that online TV will take over Cable) Some of the current largest Social Networking players are - facebook, myspace, hi5, friendster, bebo and ning. Once upon a rainy day - Microsoft decided to play it's Wallet-Magic; it purchased the Second Largest Social Networking site, facebook.com. (Remember - Google only owns orkut.com, which is a really tiny, especially in US, it's no match for facebook.com) So Google came up with it's own 80/20 Magic. Google made an open source API, called OpenSocial. It's a new, easy to use and rich programming language made to program Social Networking sites. As a result, Google's new programming language won favors of most Social Networking sites, including the world's largest - Myspace, Hi5, Friendster, Bebo, Ning and more. In conclusion, Google outsmarted Microsoft. While Bill owns the second largest Social Networking site, Google programs the code for every other Social Networking website. What do you think?
Wow... cool to see a bit of background on it! Actually thats seems a pretty smart move on their part... rather than just come out with yet another SN site which would have had a long haul to compete with the other already well established ones... they've taken a back-door approach which is pretty smart thinking IMO.