Google losing SEO focus for Facebook rival?
A now removed Tweet by Digg founder Kevin Rose suggested Google were developing a social network to rival Facebook.
I can’t imagine it being too much of surprise to most people seeing how popular Facebook is and how much data they have access to.
Pete Cashmore, CEO of Mashable and social networking blogger for CNN, brought up some interesting points regarding Google’s possible entry into the social networking game.
Cashmore believes Google is growing envious of Facebook’s treasure trove of data it has collected (and continues to collect) from its users, especially since the ‘Likes’ feature was implemented into more than 50,000 websites. Meaning many users preferences are recorded allowing targeted and specific advertising.
As well as being envious Google is probably worried that Facebook could pose a threat to their own dominance/profit-margin.
The ‘Likes’ feature could form the foundations of a search engine, with ranking determined by the amount of ‘Likes’. It would only take a subtle change for Facebook to allow its users to search the Internet for relevant content from their profile or news page, more or less meaning people would be using Facebook for everything except shopping (which is bound to come).
Is there a demand for a Facebook rival? A little. Consumers like competition, it breeds choice, better service and cheaper prices and at the moment there is no real alternative to Facebook.
Within the next couple of years we will probably see Google jump into social networking and Facebook step up its SEO relevance. With Bing powering Facebook’s search engine it’s taken a small step but if the ‘Likes’ feature continues and maintains its popularity then we could be implementing ‘Likes’ onto all web sites.
P.S. The Internet changes so fast there’ll probably be some new form of communication this time next year; psychic or the use of robot avatars.
July 8th, 2010
Cool article, and your right it is only a matter of time before shopping is on FB things change so quickly it will probably all be different next year