There can be little doubt that social networking has become a significant part of many of our everyday lives. An article last month in Wired Magazine explains that not only has the phenomenon taken hold in our personal lives, it has become a coveted aspect of the online industry with the largest internet powerhouses vying for the opportunity to take advantage of the wealth of personal information we share everyday on such sites.
Focusing on the contentious relationship between Google and Facebook, the article seems to portray an online rivalry of sorts between social networking and the algorithmic based internet search engines. In the fall of 2007, Google executives were excited by the prospect of obtaining if not all at least a stake in Facebook. According to Fred Vogelstein, author of the Wired article, Google’s leadership realized that Facebook has managed to change the online behaviors of its members. The volume and nature of personal information exchanged on Facebook is a marketing gold mine for other internet companies, including Google. While sharing personal information on the internet has become not only taboo but an outright “no no,” Facebook users not only use their real and often full names but also their real email addresses to connect with their real friends and “share their real thoughts, tastes, and news.” Whereas internet giants like Google have struggled to tap into such personal information, Facebook enjoys a unique privilege in which its users willingly provide substantial volumes of such information.
While Google executives toured their European offices, however, in the fall of 2007 basking in the possibility of getting their hands on a piece of the Facebook action, they received word that not only would they not be making any investment in the social networking site, their archrival, Microsoft, would instead be enjoying that privilege. According to Vogelstein’s article, Microsoft’s investment in Facebook was “$240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in the company, meaning that Redmond valued Facebook at an astonishing $15 billion.” In what many in the industry consider a sneaky but astute move by Facebook CEO Mark Zukerberg, Microsoft was always the preferred partner; Facebook insiders, according to the article, reveal that Google’s bid was merely a strategic move to up the ante with Microsoft.
It doesn’t take much consideration of this situation to realize why Google executives were disappointed by the outcome of what they thought would be a golden opportunity. Facebook has become one of the most popular websites on the internet with “about one-fifth of all internet users” having Facebook accounts. As already mentioned, the volume of personal information exchanged publicly on Facebook would have given internet companies like Google an opportunity to peer into the personal tastes and preferences of a large portion of internet users. Facebookers, according to the article, believe that internet search engines like Google are not humanistic enough, providing results based on mathematical algorithms that have no insight into the personal choices and preferences of internet users.
Realizing the treasure trove of information to which they have access, Facebook is intensely protective of that asset. “Details about…200 million Facebook users exists on the social network’s roughly 40,000 servers,” creating what some consider “almost a second internet.” For a company whose publicly stated mission is to “organize the world’s information,” the inability to access such information “represents a massive and fast-growing blind spot for Google.” The somewhat contentious relationship between Google and Facebook has evolved into a full blown rivalry.
Interestingly, however, as Vogelstein explains, Facebook is not necessarily in a position to do much with the personal information to which it has access. Recently, Zukerberg and his top leadership have attempted to generate revenue by using the personal information of Facebook members to employ targeted marketing campaigns only to abandon many such campaigns after members raucously complained. For example, as Vogelstein points out, Facebook’s November 2007 launch of Beacon, “a ham-fisted attempt to inject advertising into News Feeds” on the site left many members feeling “violated.” After only a handful of weeks, Facebook was forced to dump the campaign to keep their constituents happy. Earlier this year, after attempting to change its terms of use and service to give Facebook the rights to any information (photos, videos, etc.) posted on the site, users complained again to the point that “the company was forced to backtrack.”
The race to gain access to the personal information contained on Facebook in order to capitalize on it has led many to wonder if social networking sites are the wave of the internet future. Vogelstein points out that while one can search for a movie review on Google and find out what Google suggests, it is often more meaningful for individuals to have access to the same review posted by friends and family members via Facebook. In essence, Facebook has managed to utilize the medium of the internet to create a significantly more “touchy-feely” experience for users. While the ability to type a keyword into a search engine like Google in order to receive results was once the most novel idea on the internet, social networking sites like Facebook have taken this concept to a higher level.
Not only has the advent of social networking sites like Facebook allowed us to keep up with the lives of our friends and families who are often spread around the country and world, it has brought a more personal face to the internet in general. While Google has been my search engine of choice for years, it is frustrating to receive pages and pages of items in a search when perhaps the best way to find what you are looking for is to ask a friend. With hundreds of millions of friends networking off the searchable internet, Facebook has a tremendous asset if they don’t stumble.
