The Battle Between Google and Facebook

A story at Wired delves into the ongoing struggle between Google and Facebook to establish their competing visions for the future of the internet. "For the last decade or so, the Web has been defined by Google's algorithms — rigorous and efficient equations that parse practically every byte of online activity to build a dispassionate atlas of the online world. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline. In Zuckerberg's vision, users will query this 'social graph' to find a doctor, the best camera, or someone to hire — rather than tapping the cold mathematics of a Google search. It is a complete rethinking of how we navigate the online world, one that places Facebook right at the center. In other words, right where Google is now." A related article at ReadWriteWeb suggests that while Facebook's member base is enormous, the company hasn't taken advantage of its influence as well as it should have, though the capability for it to do so still exists.

Comments

Why not have both?

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Seriously. Why one way or the other. Why not both?

Re:Why not have both?

[multisync]

My "vision" for the future of the Internet:

One where there is room for Zuckerberg version, Google's, Microsofts and Richard Stallmans. And anyone else who wants to put something up for consideration.

As long as we have network neutrality, all of these visionaries are free to do as they please.

This "one version will overtake all the rest" mentality is a meat-space concept and has no place on the Internet.

Re:Why not have both?

[Angostura]

Precisely. My friends may be good at recommending a pub that I would like. But I don't think my network of friends would be particularly trustworthy for recommending with digital SLR to buy.

Re:Why not have both?

[mdwh2]

I wouldn't go that far - sure, when I'm looking to buy something new, I try to look up reviews. But it can also be helpful to ask for advice from friends too. If nothing else it helps filter out choices that might be particularly bad. And actually, I would say that you can trust your friends more - the point is, you know which of your friends might be knowledgable in that area, and which of them aren't, far more so than some random guy writing on a website (which could be anyone).

Both ways have their benefits. And before the Internet, all most people went on was looking at what was on offer in the shop, and relying on the "advice" from the shop assistant.

Re:Why not have both?

[dtzitz]

"Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline." These groups can aggregate information but they are not really a primary information source. As an idea it sounds a bit like digg but in practice digg doesn't exactly function that way.

Re:Why not have both?

[Futile Rhetoric]

And besides, Google is already making forays into just this sort of thing with Wave. Holy false dichotomy, batman.

Re:Why not have both?

[sayfawa]

That's dumb. Who do you think wants a free internet more, Stallman or Microsoft? Stallman doesn't want users to be restricted on the internet anymore than with software. How is that incompatible with Google?

Re:Why not have both?

[kappa962]

Exactly. I RTFA and I am still not seeing a huge overlap between the two services, even with the growth they are planning. There's just doesn't appear to be much conflict here.

Re:Why not have both?

[beelsebob]

It's not incompatible with google, it's incompatible with microsoft -- stalman doesn't want you to do whatever you want, he wants you to do something that's open no matter what.

Re:Why not have both?

[cashman73]

I would trust my friends more than some salesperson motivated primarily by how much commission is offered on different products, or which products have a better extended warranty for them to make money off of. Interestingly enough, I was just talking to someone on facebook yesterday that was looking at buying a new hard drive for their laptop. Trying to decide between a standard hard disk versus a solid state drive. Several friends on facebook chimed in with insightful comments.

Re:Why not have both?

[mr_lizard13]

mr_lizard13 likes this

Re:Why not have both?

[Cross-Threaded]

This "one version will overtake all the rest" mentality is a meat-space concept and has no place on the Internet.

Absolutely. The Internet is big enough for everyone to bring their own ideas, and they can succeed.

My reaction to this is simply, "Why would I limit myself to just Facebook, or just Google, or any other web service?"

Every web service out there will have some things they do better than others, so why would anyone limit themselves when it is not necessary?

Choices. You don't have to make a choice.

Re:Why not have both?

[mmkkbb]

The problem with Zuckerberg's vision is that it only works when you have a sufficient number of friends who share your interests. When people don't organize themselves into mailing lists, forums, newsgroups, etc., but only have social connections, you end up having to know someone already into a particular hobby to find out any more about it. Word of mouth is great when it works but it's unreliable.

Re:Why not have both?

[multisync]

The problem with your vision is that Stallman, like Trotsky and other orthodox Marxists is exclusionary

Actually, I would consider Stallman an "inclusionary." He has fought hardest and loudest to ensure that users - who normally have no say whatsoever in how the software they use works, will have the choice to use "something else" if that's what they want. And the beauty of it is, you are free to choose to use Microsoft's offering instead.

It's kind of the same thing as net neutrality. It's all about having choices. And that scares some people who's world view won't allow them to see a market place of ideas in terms of anything but "winner takes it all."

I'm sorry you feel so oppressed by the bearded one, but don't worry. Last time I checked there was plenty of opportunity for you to stay inside the silo and continue to be locked in by vendors like Microsoft. I honestly don't think that's going to change any time soon.

I'm just glad that my choice isn't limited to you narrow vision.

Re:Why not have both?

[CarpetShark]

As long as we have network neutrality, all of these visionaries are free to do as they please.

Wait 'til your job application demands a link to your facebook profile, and then say that.

Re:Why not have both?

[Nerdfest]

I'm glad they called it Google Wave. Something like 'FaceGoo' would probably attract the wrong crowd.

Re:Why not have both?

[AliasMarlowe]

Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline.

Zuckerberg's vision of offline life must be based on that Idiocracy movie.

My "network" of family, friends, colleagues, etc. is not my primary source of information. They may contribute valuable opinions, and frequently some useful facts or pointers to where relevant information can be found. However, most of my information - online or offline - comes from more authoratitive sources. I rely on textbooks, reference books, and so forth, as well as on searches online (google/wikipedia are starting points). I also actually seek out and consult with experts for facts/advice, whether medical or construction or fishing or whatever.

Re:Why not have both?

[gentlemen_loser]

I see your point, but it is not exactly a false dichotomy. Take what Facebook is doing and contrast that with what Microsoft is doing with Bing. In the case of Facebook, you have another company who is executing a business plan based on their vision of how the world should be. Microsoft on the other hand is busily trying to emulate what Google is doing in hopes of catching up, gaining market share, and increasing revenue.

Because of how quickly the Internet evolves, grows, and new ideas are hatched, Microsoft will continually being playing catch up. I can't wait to see what their answer to Facebook will be. Maybe something really snazzzy like "Social Interwebs Friendly Home Edition". Their continual state of trying to emulate what people are doing in a dynamic environment makes me sleep better at night.

All that said, I agree with you. I think ultimately, both Facebook and Google will be around and have to live with each other. However, they may not each like it ;-)

Re:Why not have both?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the problems with facebook, unlike myspace, is that you "web" eventually dies because you only know so many people and myspace doesn't really prompt you to connect to people outside the people that you already know through say work and social activities. Myspace however doesn't make it so hard to find other people. However it also lowers your IQ by 20 every time that you log in.

Re:Why not have both?

[BikeHelmet]

Mark Zuckerberg is correct - it's somewhat human nature for things to go that way - but there's no chance of displacing Google.

Why do I feel this way? Before buying any tech gadget, all my real life and online friends consult me. I use Google to read up on stuff, and then give them my opinion. After that they decide whether to buy the gadget. Most go out and google reviews by themselves, and some just consider my word as final.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline.

Already happening. :P Google just helps us get the info. Facebook?... not so much. Although if you have trouble keeping in contact with your friends, it might help with that.

Re:Why not have both?

[maxume]

Did you take the job where the manager said you had to blow him once a month?

Re:Why not have both?

[Nikker]

Its funny how they talk about your 'real' life (people you already talk to in "real life") as being the best way of getting info. Isn't the Best Way(tm) to consider as many resources and then convene with those people to determine which is best? If your only information source is your 'family' is that really the most balanced form of discovering information? So they are basically saying if we can sell one of your friends on a product then you should buy it as well. As a strategy this is awesome for advertising, they can take a look at your circle of friends and advertise products to your friends that are targeted at you. To give you an example of how I would pull this off: Lets say I am a photo-buff and I have a friend that is digitally inept you would be able to assert that the best photo-product to consider would be the one my friend was sold on. So by coming up with a clever way of providing your friends / family with questionnaires or other types of interactions I can base your search results on those responses. This will become useful for me because I can eventually increase the revenue of the vendor I chose to include in the questionnaire, making it more likely for me to increase traffic / make more money from that vendor, increasing that vendors presence and altering the results I provide to you because if I am basing your results on your friends then what will be my method of telling you what no one in your profile knows? If they include a reasonable return on results for outside information how will it be influenced by your friends who don't know what its really about? If your friends are all XP users then will all your results be leaning to that type of result?

Compared to Google who concedes to the fact that they must allow vendors to have some point of latitude amongst their competitors. The vendors are allowed to bid higher for preferred positioning, it still allows for a wider view of the available information since the vendors are competing with each other rather than you. A great by-product of this in terms of revenue is that the more profitable any given vendor category becomes you generate what you could estimate based on the categories perspective profit margins (the more disposable income they produce the more they will invest) and this all happens dynamically across the board! If an over night success starts hitting it rich he will likely pay more to keep his market cornered and not having to worry about negotiating or dealing with Google in a direct way other than bidding against his competitors. Google doesn't have to do anymore then making sure the hardware is humming along.

I personally will use any service that I think is interesting and don't limit myself to any one in particular but I weigh the pros, cons and angles before I use it for information I'm serious about being accurate. Since I am not a vendor I want my results as relevant as possible so I can find data / information with pros and cons about anything I search for. This is like being able to see everyone else's 'inner circle' and convening with my own to work out the best path rather than by proxy.

As far as your post I do believe Facebook or anyone should be able to make available any service they want, they just won't be paying any bills off of me ;)

Re:Why not have both?

[maxume]

I saw it on the Tonight Show, the coming Facebook-Google-Twitter mashup will be called YouTwitFace.

Re:Why not have both?

[speilberg0]

Doesn't sound like somewhere I'd like to work anyway. They've just made my job-search easier. Good Riddance.

Re:Why not have both?

[shoemilk]

"Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline."

Then why do we come online to get our information?

Re:Why not have both?

[Miros]

"one vision to rule them all... one vision to find them... one vision to bring them all and in the ddddaaaarrrrkkkneeesssss BIND THEM"

Re:Why not have both?

[Futile Rhetoric]

Fair enough, but Microsoft already has a social network with a p. large installed user system (MSN and Hotmail). They would just need to tweak it and add functionality (the same thing Google is doing by adding Wave to Gmail). That is where the big difference is; whereas Google codes stuff that works, and generally works better than what came before (or adds something of value at the very least), Microsoft rarely does.

As far as Facebook goes, I think that ultimately they are just poorly positioned to become a "paradigm of the internets", if you will. It is just too easy to add Facebook-like functionality to Google's already rather impressive set of tools. Plus, anyone expounding on the virtues of social networks should visit this sometimes.

Re:Why not have both?

[Futile Rhetoric]

That was supposed to be "user base", I'm not entirely sure what happened.

Re:Why not have both?

[Hurricane78]

Because then there would be no made-up story. ^^

You must be new here. Expect the poster to be close to criminal (retardedness|evilnees).

Re:Why not have both?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree. It's as if to say that some radical innovation in television will somehow displace the automobile. They serve entirely different roles.

Re:Why not have both?

[Colin Smith]

This "one version will overtake all the rest" mentality is a meat-space concept and has no place on the Internet.

Wrong. Because they have to grow, and once all of the little guys are gone, they can only grow at the expense of each other. Therefore there can be only one.
 

Re:Why not have both?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with your vision is that Stallman, like Trotsky and other orthodox Marxists is exclusionary

Actually, I would consider Stallman an "inclusionary." He has fought hardest and loudest to ensure that users - who normally have no say whatsoever in how the software they use works, will have the choice to use "something else" if that's what they want. And the beauty of it is, you are free to choose to use Microsoft's offering instead.

If I am not mistaken, his view is that non-free software is immoral and should not exist. FSF states explicitly that all published software should be free software.

A step back perhaps?

[TofuMatt]

I thought the magic of Google is that it's not (as) personalized, and I can get information outside my group of friends/peers. Frankly, my friends are great, but I don't go to them for advice on, say, programming; I go to Google. What's more, I couldn't get a lot of the info I get from search engines from my friends, because they just don't know. Social networking is awesome, but using Facebook in place of Google sounds like many steps back, at least the way it's being presented here.

Re:A step back perhaps?

[Bobnova]

That's my issue with this. Unless my facebookies have used dozens of different cameras/heatsinks/whatevers their advice just isn't useful, and none of them are likely to know how to build a heatpipe, or other esoteric things like that. Moreover, if they did know i'd just, you know, ask them.

Re:A step back perhaps?

[empraptor]

Google is not the solution for your programming domain inquries. Facebook is. You just need to get better friends.

Re:A step back perhaps?

[Cosmo the Cat]

Facebook is like the new AOL of the internet. A walled off, members only version that doesn't want any outside association or connections.

Facebook will begin to fade just like myspace did

[mc moss]

I don't see facebook as anything else other than a fad that will begin to go away. I already deleted (not just disabled) my fb account and know many other people too after graduating college.

Aardvark

[Mattwolf7]

Sounds like Facebook wants to do something similar to Aardvark - http://vark.com/ Basically you ask a question and it finds people in your "network" and poses the question to them. You get pretty good answers from people around the world.

Re:Aardvark

[dword]

Aardvark is strongly connected to Facebook as far as I can see. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Screenshot

Re:Aardvark

[badzilla]

Wow you can't even visit that link using Google Chrome

Re:Aardvark

[bothwell]

Nah, that's just Facebook Connect. It's Facebook's own implementation of OpenID, and makes Facebook users able to use the same credentials to log into any site that uses it. People are a bit more likely to have a Facebook account than an OpenID one, so I guess that's why they've used Facebook Connect instead of OpenID (or any of the other providers).

Google will always have an advantage for me

[Anonymous Coward]

I can get useful information without signing up for anything. Facebook needs me to join and create a profile.

I am not a joiner.

Re:Google will always have an advantage for me

[halfhaggis]

I am not a joiner.

How's society working out for you?

Re:Google will always have an advantage for me

[erko]

I agree with you, although you have some sort of google account even if you haven't "joined" it.
Your interactions with google are associated with your computer and a google id. I still use google and facebook (although I resisted facebook for a while), but I wouldn't mind if they were both a little less big brother.
Here the first google privacy info I found: Search Privacy at Google

Re:Google will always have an advantage for me

[BryanL]

An AC is not a joiner. Who would have thought..:)

Re:Google will always have an advantage for me

[maxume]

Makes it pretty easy to get groceries.

Re:Google will always have an advantage for me

[bertoelcon]

Google's data mining, big brother-y concepts are what make its AdSense work as well as it does. You could fight it but its the basis of the real profit gaining business model they have.

Well I for one

[Nerdfest]

Do not want to have searches, research, news exposure, etc, mainly recommended by my friends and social network contacts. It's way too limiting. And it's not just because I don't have any friends. People don't even necessarily have the same interests as their friends. Peoples opinions have value, but so does objectivity. Think about buying a camera. If you only base your decision on your friends recommendations, you would never look at anything 'new'. Somebody needs to do that.

Re:Well I for one

[evilkasper]

I'd mod you up if I could, this is the reason Facebook is not the future of the internet.

Re:Well I for one

[IANAAC]

If you only base your decision on your friends recommendations, you would never look at anything 'new'. Somebody needs to do that.

Look at it from another point view:

If you've used Boxee and use the social aspects of that, you've most likely discovered shows and/or music (and other online content) you probably didn't know existed. I've also discovered new things through Facebook.

I think there's room enough for more than one way to get information, be it impartial or through a circle of friends and colleagues, as would be the case with LinkedIn. Discovery is discovery, wherever you get it.

Re:Well I for one

[gravesb]

The problem is that the target isn't you, or the general slashdot audience. It is the advertisers, and they are interested in easily suggestible numbers. The more people, and the more suggestible, the better. Facebook also seems better targeted to guiding people to what they didn't know they needed-the advertisers' best friend. I think control of the Internet in this sense means control of advertising dollars. Like you, I'm going to stick with Google and discount anything I see on Facebook. But like you, I am in the minority. The real question is what the majority of people on the Internet will do.

Re:Well I for one

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you discover new things through Facebook when it effectivly blanks out any information provided by anyone not in your "network"?

That is one of my major complaints about Facebook. How am I supposed to know if I want to be "friends" with someone if their profile is hidden from me? And I can't view their profile unless I am friends with them.

The whole thing seems like a dick waving exercise for people who have a lot of IRL acquaintances (not necessarily people they are actually friends with). Seemingly the only way to become "friends" with someone on Facebook is to know them already.

Re:Well I for one

[mdwh2]

If you only base your decision on your friends recommendations, you would never look at anything 'new'.

Maybe it's just my friends, but I find the range of material I find out about from my friends far more diverse than I'd find out just by looking at mainstream adverts or shops. Music would be the classic example, but I think it applies more generally.

Consider, how much of Firefox's success (not to mention Linux, to a lesser degree) is due to people seeing it advertised or otherwise finding out about it themselves, versus it being recommended by a geek friend?

Re:Well I for one

[donaggie03]

How do you discover new things through Facebook when it effectivly blanks out any information provided by anyone not in your "network"?

I think you are using a different interpretation of the word "new" than the GP. He is using the word to mean "new to me". So something can be known about by his friends, but it is new to him, so he learns about it. It looks like you are using the word to mean "brand spanking new" so that you and all of your friends would be clueless aobut it. Both points are valid.

That is one of my major complaints about Facebook. How am I supposed to know if I want to be "friends" with someone if their profile is hidden from me? And I can't view their profile unless I am friends with them.

The whole thing seems like a dick waving exercise for people who have a lot of IRL acquaintances (not necessarily people they are actually friends with). Seemingly the only way to become "friends" with someone on Facebook is to know them already.

That is precisely why I use Facebook instead of Myspace. People are almost required to have an IRL connection to the people on their friends list. This makes it a lot more likely that they know the individual personally, so it really is a "network" and not random people who like to have friends online. This also improves the likelihood that the person is a REAL PERSON, not a spam page. This is opposed to Myspace where people have 7000 friends that they never spoke to (the real dick waving exercise), and you have no idea who is really thier friend, or even if they are real people.

Re:Well I for one

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but they don't advertise. I realize that this was your point, however, you didn't stop to think what would happen if they did advertise.

Re:Well I for one

[eloki]

I have become Facebook friends with one or two people through playing an app that was a trading game - just a distracting waste of time actually. It's true that I'm not really "friends" with these people, but the point is that we interacted enough for one of us to add the other as a friend and be accepted.

This is one of the things some people just don't understand about Facebook, partly because they are too hung up on it using the term "friend". You can use it just to reconnect with your real-life friends, because they are friends. But you can also use Facebook groups, apps, fan pages or whatever to find people who aren't your real-life friends, but have common interests, like-minded or fun to talk to, *if you want*.

It's no different to hanging out on IRC in channels about Linux or animal photography or posting in a Buffy newsgroup and becoming friends with those people over time. IRC, newsgroups, Facebook and Twitter are just all ways of socialising. Certainly Twitter et al are nothing special, but neither are they something awful that signals the end of intelligence.

Science and Statistical Data Mining

[strannik]

Statistical and Scientific Data will become more relevant as soon as all my friends take this cool quiz on facebook!

"What are we doing tonight, Brain?"

[buttfscking]

"The same thing we do every night, Pinky -- try to TAKE OVER THE INTERNET!"

Re:Facebook will begin to fade just like myspace d

[dsavi]

Seems to me it's just the opposite; I can easily see it being mainstream for the next few years at least. And anyway, MySpace never grew at the same pace as facebook at any point, did it? Also, MySpace seems to have more of a reputation for being for 13-17 year-olds and pedophiles, while facebook has more of an aura of an "Every-man's social network".

Give Me Dispassionate Information Any Day

[Quothz]

Friends, family, colleagues, and peers as my primary offline information sources? Only if I want gossip, urban legends, extemporaneous answers to avoid admissions of ignorance, and rambling anecdotes. If I need actual information offline, I use reference works. I don't want "passion" in my information; I'd rather have facts and data. Thanks just the same, Zuck, but please go back to your tea party and let the grownups deal with information systems.

Re:Give Me Dispassionate Information Any Day

[mdwh2]

Surely this criticism applies to Google too? If you rely on a Google for your knowledge, you get plenty of gossip, urban legends, ignorance etc, and worse you don't even know the people it's from, and whether there is any reason to trust them or not. Sure, occasionally you might happen upon a web page that gives a reliable reference, or a website that is in itself authoritative, but the same is true of friends too.

Re:Give Me Dispassionate Information Any Day

[Quothz]

If you rely on a Google for your knowledge, you get plenty of gossip, urban legends, ignorance etc, and worse you don't even know the people it's from, and whether there is any reason to trust them or not.

That's true enough if you're totally indiscriminate and don't use services such as Google Scholar. Let's say I need information on Iran.

First result: Wikipedia. I know it's pretty accurate if you avoid touchy topics. Since this is Iran, I'll poke around the citations for primary information but pass otherwise.

Second stop: CIA World Factbook. This is accurate. Surprisingly, despite your claim to the contrary, I do know who wrote this information and and how much I can trust it.

Third hit: New York Times coverage. Again, I know who it's from and about how much I can trust them (probably, but corroborate).

And that's just from the first few links of plain ol' Google.

Re:Give Me Dispassionate Information Any Day

[pfafrich]

Often I will trust my friends more than the stuff on the internet. Friends are not trying to sell me stuff unlike much on the internet, friends will largely share my world view and not try to impose some other agenda on me (well not too much), and if they are good friends may actually know enough about me to know the sort of info that I need. I've also got a pretty good idea of how much weight to put on different friends suggestions.

Just the other day I was doing some DIY and a friend came by and gave me a good simple suggestion which was better than all the stuff I've read on websites.

Re:Give Me Dispassionate Information Any Day

[cabazorro]

"True Enough"

That's a title of the book by Farhad Manjoo

It is a human condition to search for the information that reaffirms a pre-established set of beliefs
(comes from the book) that reinforce our own opinions (like Slashdot).

Google weakness is their scope. When it comes to information, they are the GM of the 60's.
In house, vertical, total control.

Facebook banks on that a groups people that exchange information that they find _useful_.

Social networks should not be flat but holistic. They must grow withing their local contexts.

"True Enough"
Great book. I recommend it.

Re:Give Me Dispassionate Information Any Day

[Quothz]

Google weakness is their scope. When it comes to information, they are the GM of the 60's. In house, vertical, total control.

I don't understand this statement, I'm afraid. In what way is information gleaned from pages returned from Googling in-house, vertical, or totally controlled with respect to Google?

Social networks should not be flat but holistic.

Again, no clue here. Flat in what way? Holistic how? They should be looked at as a whole network rather than as individual people? I can dig that, but "flat" doesn't seem to be the contrary case. I'm also not certain what "good design of social networks" has to do with "getting information".

Facebook banks on that a groups people that exchange information that they find _useful_.

Alas, when information is passed primarily through the hands of the masses, what people seem to find useful is that pop-rocks and Coke are deadly, that newts mean water's good to drink, that accepting Jesus is the road to eternal life, and that B1gd1ck5432234 is sooooo drunk. Asking around on a social network is a terrific way to collect anecdotes, recommendations, and more mindless lolling than you can wince at, but is not a good basis for even the lightest and most trivial of research. No, give me a solid search engine paired with critical thinking any day.

Re:Give Me Dispassionate Information Any Day

[Miros]

I feel like this is a straw man argument, at least as it pertains to how I use facebook and google (that statement alone may discredit the rest of my comment). If I'm searching for something with a general purpose search engine like google, I generally am looking for a piece of factual information that I know to exist, or at least a relevant reference point as a starting place for a topic of interest. I go to facebook to "browse" what my friends, family, and colleagues are up to in their day to day lives; which is an entirely different type of information. additional things may leak through, such as if a friend has just purchased a new digital SLR camera and they post about it to facebook, I may send them a message asking them how they like it or something like that, but such things (at least in my case) are more often coincidences than purposeful encounters.

furthermore, i dont feel as though sites like facebook purport to be general human knowledge-bases any more than google claims to be an authoritative reference point for my former college roommate's birthday and current place of residence. it can also be good for remembering which of my friends are trek fans and which are not ("which of my friends likes star trek" doesn't work in google yet, but i'm feeling optimistic about the future)

Apples and Oranges

[Xistenz99]

It doesn't make sense at all to compare these two sites because I don't think I have ever mistaken Google for facebook. Facebook will never be a place for looking up statistics unless those statistics consist of "Who is going to my party tonight", Facebook influence is small and limited

Re:Apples and Oranges

[Macrat]

It doesn't make sense at all to compare these two sites because I don't think I have ever mistaken Google for facebook. Facebook will never be a place for looking up statistics unless those statistics consist of "Who is going to my party tonight", Facebook influence is small and limited

If only I had mod points...

This is CREEPY sounding.

[ae1294]

humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information

I'm sorry but honestly I like cold logic.. This sounds like some sort of RIAA / Government control the flow of information justification and creeps me the hell out.

I donno sort of like this...
"why do you need to look at books Timmy? Why not just ask grandpa about it? What do you have to hide from your dear old grandpa timmy?" Why don't you trust that we know best.

It just sounds creepy but maybe I just have less faith in my family's wisdom than most? Anyhow I really don't see a battle here... There is more than one way to skin a search request....

Re:This is CREEPY sounding.

[westlake]

I'm sorry but honestly I like cold logic..

But is it cold logic?

Search Google for information on "global warming" and you will get 78 million returns.

Each attempt to refine your search will help reduce this number to something more manageable. But increases the risk that you will find what you want to find - not what you need to know.

The geek will hunt for the scenarios he can use to explain how his PC might have been hijacked the nineteen times over six weeks that he stands accused of having downloaded a DVD rip or pre-release screener of an A-list feature film.

Not one of them Twilight.

The problem is that the civil jury only has to decide whether the plaintiff's explanation seems reasonable enough.

 

Buyer Beware!

[Anonymous Coward]

FB's Capricious and poorly defined rules. I was âoepermanentlyâ banned from Facebook recently for about a month for violating the terms and conditions of FB. I protested and got back on but they said that on my next infraction there will be no second chance.

This occurred shortly after I posted my position on abortion. Problem is, that they would not tell me what I had done or how I may have violated their secret rules. My issue is that I invested my time not theirs uploading my pictures to FB and at the very least they should be able to give some guidance as to what I did so that I won't do it again.

I am fed up with their capricious and non-deterministic "rules" and their draconian administration of âoejusticeâ. I believe in rules and the administration thereof but rules should be clearly understood, publicized and adjudicated. That IS NOT the case with FB. And they want to rule the world?

Re:Buyer Beware!

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was you I'd stop being a woman hating fucktard who adds pictures of aborted fetuses or protests that basically say that the death of Tiller was fine. Just a guess.

Don't be that guy.

Re:Buyer Beware!

[Cross-Threaded]

How do you get permanently banned for a month? I'm sure that is simply a poor choice of words, oh well.

Getting angry at a web service for their rules, and style of applying them, is not very constructive.

Even if they aren't as transparent, or helpful, as you think they should be.

When you opened your account, you agreed to be censored by them. Since they are the service provider, it is their prerogative to run that service in whatever way they see fit. They will do it their way, and the only reason they will change is if they see that revenue is dropping because of the way they run it.

If they provide a service that you find valuable enough that you still want it after this realization, then you will choose to put up with it. If not, you will leave, and either find a service that is more compatible with your views, or create your own.

There is nothing requiring you to use their website, you can go to a competitor, and there is nothing stopping you from creating your own website to post your views. Who knows, you website might just be the next big winner, and eclipse Google, and Facebook, combined.

Re:Buyer Beware!

[rxan]

A lot of time the rules are non-deterministic though. My guess is that someone complained about you and that's how you got kicked off of Facebook. If nobody complained then probably nothing would have happened.

Yes it is non-deterministic, but if you do stuff that gets people pissed off enough then the authorities are going to notice.

The Wired heuristic

[jfengel]

A good general heuristic: plans exposed on Wired never come to fruition. Wired is where you go when you want to gain exposure for a plan that can't get traction.

So no, Facebook isn't going to challenge Google with any success. If they're lucky, they'll continue to be an interesting niche player, like blogs. More likely, they'll let their success go to their heads and they'll become MySpace, which people abandon in droves for the next flashy thing.

In this case I also RTFA and I think their plan is dumb: I use google precisely to find out what I don't already know. But even without RTFA, the Wired heuristic tells me it's a bad idea. That heuristic has served me well.

Re:The Wired heuristic

[Anonymous Coward]

A good general heuristic: plans exposed on Wired never come to fruition.

What would happen if you published this idea of yours on Wired?

Re:The Wired heuristic

[GravityStar]

Causality loop.

Re:The Wired heuristic

[Anonymous Coward]

The Internet would die.

Trusting strangers vs. cicrle jerking

[Opportunist]

That's basically what you get when you define "opinions from everyone vs. opinions from friends" negatively.

On one hand, in google, the recommendations and answers you get are from strangers. They may be experts, they may be deluded and full of it, they may actively try to misinform you. You don't know. Now, Google holds the creed that the majority isn't out there to "get you" and to con you, so the numbers work in your favor. If, and only if, the majority actually has the right answer. If you asked some 500 years ago the majority about the revolution of sun and earth around each other, the answer you would have gotten had been a wrong one. When your source is the majority, new insight is rarely possible. The majority never thinks "outside of the box", it usually goes with what's tried and (perceived) true.

The other extreme is relying only on your network of friends and other people who think like you (because else, they would probably not be on your friends list) for information. The danger here is that wrong information will become reinforced and more readily believed as truth because it will be confirmed by many. A says X, B agrees, C doesn't know, but he perceives A and B as experts in this field, so he takes over their theory as reality.

Either has its advantages and drawbacks. The internet is no dinner where you get your answers and informations served. It's more a buffet where you have them offered, but you alone are responsible to get the right ones.

Re:Trusting strangers vs. cicrle jerking

[Omniscient Lurker]

For your astronomical example, what are the chances you have friends smart/knowledgeable enough to tell you correct information. If I want a fact my friends are unreliable, if I want recomendations/opinions for various things my friends are better because they know me.

Google is good because it bypasses my friends' limitations of knowledge, Facebook is redundant because the only things my friend's could tell me I could simply ask in person.

Re:Trusting strangers vs. cicrle jerking

[Cro Magnon]

To me it's a question of just what info you're looking for. Google will give me large amounts of info on Product-X, from detailed specifications to total company propaganda.

But Facebook can tell me what an average person thinks about Product X. Probably none of my friends is an X-purt, but they know whether or not X sucked for them.

Hey, has anyone heard from Roland?

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed that his Google Ads blog hasn't been updated in a while. I hope he's ok.

Re:Hey, has anyone heard from Roland?

[beardz]

http://meta.slashdot.org/story/09/01/09/1456216/Roland-Piquepaille-Dies

Re:Hey, has anyone heard from Roland?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, just in case you haven't heard ...

Bad crowd

[Faux_Pseudo]

One of the problems with the internet is that it gives people a chance to self select themselves into a tiny little corner of interstes that creates an echo chamber. I don't want recomendations from people I know to be prone to confermation bias. I want recomendations from a large body of evidance showing both pro's and con's. Nothing against Facebook, its just their users I have an issue with.

Re:Bad crowd

[Cross-Threaded]

I don't think the problem you are referring to has anything to do with the Internet.

Social clubs provide the same exact opportunities to form splinter groups, and have probably done so, for as long as humans were capable of thought, and reason.

No Internet required.

Actually, the Internet provides some relief to the kind of group-think that bothers you, in that it makes different viewpoints much more available to you.

Re:Bad crowd

[Lockblade]

One of the problems with the internet is that it gives people a chance to self select themselves into a tiny little corner of interstes that creates an echo chamber. I don't want recomendations from people I know to be prone to confermation bias.

And yet you're posting on Slashdot?

It's the Economics! (Like the 60's)

[StCredZero]

The big problem facing Facebook is difficulty of monetization. There are societal and cultural sensitivities around companies monetizing one's "circle of friends." This has been true since the early 90's with MCI's campaigns.

Cold mathematics (Google's way) doesn't have this problem.

I am reminded of a quote from the PBS documentary about the 60's. A woman was lamenting that so many of the movements had powerful societal traction, but no economic basis. So in the end, they faded away.

Re:It's the Economics! (Like the 60's)

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, I remember how civil rights and environmentalism just faded away.

Re:It's the Economics! (Like the 60's)

[Miros]

of course, at the end of the day, by the numbers, google is an advertising sales company not a software company. that's probably a little unfair, but it's necessary to point out that there are many many projects at google that do not really earn significant income, and only a few that really sustain the vast majority of their cash flow. that is not to say that many of the other things they work on are not cool and useful; quite the opposite in fact. we should not discourage anyone from building something of incredible usefulness (which I think facebook has de facto just based on the amount of traffic it gets) just because we don't yet know where to attach the meter.

Re:It's the Economics! (Like the 60's)

[StCredZero]

Not those. The first one had a built in constituency. The second one could be practiced by ordinary citizens. I'm thinking about the "back to the land" movement and their ilk.

Re:It's the Economics! (Like the 60's)

[GuldKalle]

Google knows what you are looking for, but Facebook knows what is happening in your life. Both things are a good angle for targeting advertising. Facebook just needs to brush off their algorithm and offer something like adsense, and then they're in the ad-game

Beauty of the Internet

[Auxis]

The beauty of the Internet is that I'm not limited to asking questions to the peers around me in real life (or on some social network.) I've never used Facebook for anything else than looking at pictures of friends I haven't seen in years, keeping in contact with them, and trying to talk to the single ladies that I know. I can remember only one situation where a friend was interested in a subject (programming) which I offered to help him through a private message.

It's too much work.

[tjstork]

I think the moment you start writing reviews of your doctor friends, Facebook explodes into a giant flamewar.

Ghettoization of the intertubes

[flyingfsck]

I think the subject line says it all.

The advantage of a universal search engine such as Google is that it searches for data internationally and broadens one's horizons.

Re:Ghettoization of the intertubes

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with a Google universal search is that it often returns items I don't want.

Webpages, Yes... I did a Web search and expect web pages. International, sometimes might be useful, but it depends on the search criteria (news vs. information vs. reviews).

Books results, Products results, Groups results, Profile results, etc.? *NO*. I did a *Web* search for *web pages* and I don't want Google-specific offerings from their specialized search engine categories unless I specifically search in those categories.

I also don't want those filtering into the web search as well--I just want *web pages* when I do a *Web* search on Google.

Whoever thought that would help Google appear to be a better search engine, well, I don't think it makes it better and it's most of the reason I use Yahoo and Bing over Google.

Re:Ghettoization of the intertubes

[Anonymous Coward]

No, just like one of the original people implied facebook serves a niche, as does google; neither one can nor will replace the other. A hammer can't replace a wrench and vice versa, however in a few cases both can be used to get the job done (aka the overlap in a Venn diagram). Wired just needs to mentally masturbate for a while to sell online ads. Nothing more. Sometimes they have a good article though. Just don't accept it as gospel and you'll be fine. There is nothing Ghetto about facebook. I keep in touch with friends and share opinions when I don't want to call up everyone and say "watch movie XXXXX". People outside my circle could give a shit, people inside it, often like my opinion on certain things. And we all agree twitter is shit. So anyway, open your mind and see there is more than one way to skin a cat and more than one use case for the intertubes.

Militarism and the market.

[delirium of disorder]

Zuckerberg may be the cute face to front Facebook, but we all know that the (only) two other board member's Peter Theil and Jim Breyer are humanists of the highest degree.

Yes! because Thiel's extreme vision of capitalism where corporations control the whole world is 'humanizing'. TheVanguard.Org and 'The Diversity Myth' are humanist projects, not neoconservative? Support for the rich using offshore tax havens...that's the ethical human thing to do!

Jim Breyer's time on the board of Walmart, why, I'm sure he's helping Walmart become more caring, personal, and humane.

Greylock Venture Capital's ties to the CIA are also of no concern, I'm sure.

Can you make money out of friendship? Can you create communities free of national boundaries - and then sell Coca-Cola to them? Facebook is profoundly uncreative. It makes nothing at all. It simply mediates in relationships that were happening anyway.

I think It's pretty insane that people present their personal details in public via social networking. This same type of connectivity could be implemented with end to end encryption, signatures to verify everyone, and secure deletion. Social networks could be a p2p, open source, empowering service. Instead, people just upload their entire lives to the web, and use services run by some of the most extreme right wing members of the ruling class. WAKE THE FUCK UP!

Re:Militarism and the market.

[AnyoneEB]

I think It's pretty insane that people present their personal details in public via social networking. This same type of connectivity could be implemented with end to end encryption, signatures to verify everyone, and secure deletion. Social networks could be a p2p, open source, empowering service. Instead, people just upload their entire lives to the web, and use services run by some of the most extreme right wing members of the ruling class. WAKE THE FUCK UP!

Sounds wonderful. Where can I get this service so I can recommend it to my friends? Doesn't exist? Maybe there's a project working on it?

Personally, I do have a Facebook account -- with pretty much the info you could find on me if you were very bored and had a few hours to kill on Google -- but I would rather use the system you describe. Unfortunately, it will probably never exist. Facebook might get replaced by Wave, but not for privacy reasons. Privacy and security don't sell.

Re:Militarism and the market.

[MrPhilby]

Finally

Is facebook going down?

[Psychotic_Wrath]

Is it just me and a few other people, or is this becoming common. I am really getting sick of facebook. I don't really use it as much as I used to. There are just too many things that I don't rally like. It would be nice to know if there are others that have quit or slowed their use of facebook.

Re:Is facebook going down?

[d4nowar]

For every person that says "I deleted my facebook because I got tired of it," there are about a dozen moms, dads, aunts, uncles, and grandparents just starting one up.

Re:Is facebook going down?

[FlyingBishop]

FTA:

We all had that audacity, 'Anything Google does, we can do better.' No one talked about MySpace or the other social networks. We just talked about Google."

They know who their competition is, but they haven't even really matched Google. Google search and Gmail are where they are because no one can possibly come up with a service that offers the same feature set in such a clean, elegant, and efficient package.

Facebook is where they are from sheer momentum. If I thought people would read my RSS, I'd be inclined to move everything to a private site without all that Javascript, Flash, and random ad banners. At the moment, there is a certain class of social interactions that my generation expects to happen on Facebook (mostly date setting.) Email is too impersonal, phone is too difficult to get a hold of someone. Facebook is a happy medium. Unfortunately, it's a mess.

Re:Is facebook going down?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. You should send me your username, 'cause I'd like to gift you a pizza.

Pretty much my main use for facebook, which I didn't get with myspace, is for playing games with friends and lately non-immediate relatives have been contacting me a bit through there. When I first joined, it seemed like it was kind of a nice social site; instead it turned out to be myspace, only wearing wearing a fancier jacket. The amount of unfunny inanity that facebook perpetuates is staggering.

When I read stories like this, or their complaints against the chipmakers (no links before breakfast), I wonder things like has Facebook done a single thing that could reasonably be called innovative? Does Facebook ever plan to make money? Do the people running Facebook actually believe that they're providing a unique and valuable service? Do they have plans to some day actually provide a unique and valuable service? I mean, there's nothing wrong with starting a company just to make money but then you should probably make money and maybe not seem quite so full of yourself.

Re:Is facebook going down?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have also stopped using it, and I've been using it for about 5 years.

It has just become unmanageable to maintain an acceptable standard of privacy and control over your details.

Nowadays, everyone's aunties have facebook, and there's no way for me to know what photos of me friends are putting up and who can see them.

Re:Is facebook going down?

[Cross-Threaded]

Google search and Gmail are where they are because no one can possibly come up with a service that offers the same feature set in such a clean, elegant, and efficient package.

(emphasis mine)

Maybe no one can realistically say to themselves "I'm going to flip a switch, and kick Google's rear-end."

That does not mean that Google's services cannot be improved upon.

There is opportunity there to compete with them.

It will always be possible to build a better mousetrap. The bar is high, but, it can be cleared.

It may be a tremendous task, and you would need some brilliant ideas to do it, but please don't say that it is not possible.

My prediction is that there will come a day where Google, Inc. falls into the same trap as every other business is likely to fall in.

They will eventually become complacent. How they deal with that is unknown.

When they do become complacent, that will be the time it will be easiest to compete with, and possibly eclipse them.

However, there is no reason that someone with a brilliant idea, and good organizational skills, can't become a real competitor before Google becomes complacent.

The opinion of "the masses" isn't personal

[Shag]

I have somewhere north of 300 friends on Facebook. Any question I might need help with would best be addressed to at most three of them. If I need to know something, I'm not going to find it out by asking my cousins. People I used to work with tend to know pretty much the same stuff I know in the field I used to work in. And so on. I haven't been able to enforce "you must be knowledgeable and a good thinker to know me" yet.

Re:The opinion of "the masses" isn't personal

[Macrat]

I have somewhere north of 300 friends on Facebook.

Do you actually KNOW any of them?

Re:The opinion of "the masses" isn't personal

[Shag]

I have somewhere north of 300 friends on Facebook.

Do you actually KNOW any of them?

Of course - and that's how I know that for any given question that might come up, fewer than 1% of them are going to be able to tell me anything I don't already know. I'm a generalist; "know more than most people about most things" is how I roll. So unless I have a question that requires specialist-level knowledge of, or advice on, something, my social network isn't any more useful than Google.

evil

[Weezul]

Just remember that Google still tries to not be evil. Facebook quite clearly has no such qualms about the standard sort of "corporate evil". Also Facebook invades your life infinite more than Google.

Re:evil

[IANAAC]

Facebook quite clearly has no such qualms about the standard sort of "corporate evil". Also Facebook invades your life infinite more than Google.

Only if you let it. It's not invasive with some forethought.

Re:evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Order versus Chaos.

facebook==AOL

[saleenS281]

Zuckerberg wants to create a walled internet where everything goes through facebook. We've seen it once before, back when it actually had a small chance of succeeding because a lot of the general public didn't know any better.

Not happening, get over yourself. It didn't work the first time, it won't work this time.

yawn

[ypctx]

Just by quickly scanning the article, it looks like their world domination is intended to hinge on the "Facebook Connect" thing for websites --- which Google already has an answer to: the "Google Friend Connect". (Correct me, if you indulge in reading 20 page advertising articles about nothing.)

All in all, saying that "Facebook is going to dethrone Google" sounds to me as saying "Somalian pirates are going to defeat US army and then dominate the western society."

<joke>
Facebook: blah blah dominate blah blah
Google: yawn (removes Facebook from search index)
</joke>

But to stay objective, Google should seriously do something about the abomination named Orkut, which runs on .aspx. But I guess they don't care too much - their intent is to social-networkize the whole web using open protocols - and open thinking - which is why they will succeed.

there's one tiny difference

[martas]

facebook is good for knowing what the idiotic things the idiots you're surrounded by do to kill time online. Google is good for everything else.

Re:Facebook will begin to fade just like myspace d

[Frosty Piss]

I already deleted (not just disabled) my fb account and know many other people too after graduating college.

An interesting statement. I resisted getting a Facebook account until after college, when I decided I wanted to try to find old school friends.

Re:Facebook will begin to fade just like myspace d

[GravityStar]

Also, a lot of myspace pages suck. Like geocities websites, only worse. Much much worse. There are entire myspace profiles filled with Unspeakable things.

Yeah right

[elashish14]

Get back to me when Facebook gives a damn what I want. Always changing the layout because of this stupid concept of 'sharing' every fucking detail of our lives. Tell me on the right side of the homepage that I should friend my 60-year-old former diffusion professor. Forcing me to use their stupid minifeeds and asshole applications. You know why people consult Google for shit? Because Google gives them what they want. Facebook is just for dicking around and bending over while millions of drones come back and bend over for Mark Zuckerberg to come up with some new fucked up idea for changing the layout and pissing off the userbase again. Whereas Google will always be the same old Google, typically (not always, of course) well in touch with their userbase, providing what you need and far more powerful than Facebook. And above all, Google gives me the entire web, whereas Facebook just constrains me to this stupid social networking concept. Seriously, if the entire web became personal profiles and Facebook fan pages, I wouldn't bother paying for my connection anymore.

Google Wave and room for multiple visions

[Gary W. Longsine]

Google Wave (be sure to watch the video, it's long, but there is lots of interesting stuff in it) will provide a system based on open standards and open source code. It will let folk use their own email inbox, IM client, and blog as the focus of their communication with the world. The open federated model will end the stovepipe model where I must have 5 IM systems, 3 to 5 social networking systems, and hundreds of blog logins what I must keep track of to communicate with folk. FaceBook will probably integrate and play with it, so they won't die overnight, but they wont' become the center of the internet. Google Wave, assuming it works as envisioned, will probably cement the "Google at the center of the internet" model, but it will leave room for other players, probably even help them, even those who could challenge Google Ads.

Re:Google Wave and room for multiple visions

[Anonymous Coward]

The beauty of the Google Wave approach -- and why it is not just a meaningless power grab -- is not Google Wave has nothing to with Google except that their engineers came up with it. Once it is released, a black hole can open up in Mountain View and Google Wave will still be a perfectly usable service.

Facebook's Vision?

[dhammond]

I don't really get Facebook's vision for the web. It seems like wishful thinking to me. That is, they're starting with the fact that they have all this data that they want to use to make money, and they're envisioning what a world would look like that would make them insanely rich.

Anyway, I, for one, am more comfortable with Google vision, which is not predicated on the idea of a single company having exclusive access to vast amounts of personal information.

By the way, it's easy to forget that what makes Google's "rigorous and efficient" algorithms work is that they model the work that all of the millions of people in the world do every day to build the web. When someone reads something online that they like, they create a new page and link to it. That is the powerful idea -- harnessing the work of real people -- that made Google work, and allowed it to supplant earlier search engines.

is the battle between Britney and Christina

[Anonymous Coward]

Google and Facebook have done very little for the advancement of humanity, tbh. They respectively make it easier for the laypersons to look up unreliable information they don't really need, and allow the lazy to broadcast recreational updates on their life to more people than care. If you are using either tool for work then, sorry to break it to you, but your job is not doing anything to improve the world. Professionals and academics carry on using specialist applications.

I used the Internet to communicate for a whole decade before Page and Brin were dragging up at Stanford. Today I use mostly the same protocols and resources I've been enjoying since 1996.

Re:is the battle between Britney and Christina

[Anonymous Coward]

Google and Facebook have done very little for the advancement of humanity, tbh. They respectively make it easier for the laypersons to look up unreliable information they don't really need, and allow the lazy to broadcast recreational updates on their life to more people than care. If you are using either tool for work then, sorry to break it to you, but your job is not doing anything to improve the world. Professionals and academics carry on using specialist applications.

I used the Internet to communicate for a whole decade before Page and Brin were dragging up at Stanford. Today I use mostly the same protocols and resources I've been enjoying since 1996.

You may need to take a course on effective use of keywords. The last job I had was an IT support technician for small businesses, and often I was confronted with problems that had no obvious, I-read-it-in-a-book solution. By effectively using keywords and Google I was able to 99.9% of the time find a solution to the problem. Most of the answers I find to questions are from people who have contributed to discussions in online forums and, using our fantastic technology, I was able to dredge up these ancient discussions to aid me in the future. Google is truly an asset to humanity because it enables valuable information to be found!

Self centered view of the world

[Anonymous Coward]

Googles advertising policies seem to have directly made it profitable for the scum of the net to prosper. For me search results are incresingly full of crap sites with no useful content followed by the words "ads by google" somewhere on the page.

If facebook thinks its users are going to share all of their personal information re doctors for their "friends" to discover they are not being realistic.

While both sites provide useful services to the world to think that either one is "the way forward" is in my view doing is a disservice to Internet users... I believe we can do better than either vision and have our cake and eat it too.

If I had to pick any one single improvement to the network in the last ten years it would be wikipedia hands down.. no contest. I would rather have wikipedia /w dialup than not having wikipedia with broadband.

This is a false premise

[br00tus]

The whole genius of Google is that it is NOT "rigorous and efficient equations that parse practically every byte of online activity to build a dispassionate atlas of the online world". Search engines prior to Google would classify a searched for word or phrase by how many times it was mentioned in a page, if the word/phrase was in the page's title, or in the beginning of the page, perhaps in a header, and so forth. Google's algorithm was to do those rankings, but then to give enormous weight to what pages of that type linked to another page. So if a large majority of baseball web sites linked to the MLB's web site, MLB's website would be on top for a Google search for baseball (as indeed it is). This is not a dispassionate equation, but one utilizing human cognitive skills and social connections via the web to give you what you want. Google's surge over search engines like Opentext, Webcrawler, Excite and Altavista was precisely that it began concentrating on social connections on the web.

And insofar as non-search services - Google has Orkut, on Google Mail one could only get an account originally through an acquaintance, Google Earth has a Web 2.0 collaborative piece to highlight places in a local area, Google sponsors the Summer of Code and so forth. Facebook may be taking the social component even farther, but Google has never been just an icy monolith of sleek computers and dispassionate equations.

antimatter in the mix

[Gary W. Longsine]

Frankly Microsoft, undeniably, share that "antimatter" characteristic with Stallman, and although they haven't demonstrated much in the way of competence to exploit it, Zuckerberg / FaceBook aspire to that level of domination. Philosophically, Google doesn't, even though they dominate search quite thoroughly, Wolfram Alpha and Bing have recently shown that there is room even in search for serious innovation, and potentially come competition.

Google appears to be the one company in this mix that seems to subscribe to the notion that a rising tide floats all boats. Look at what they are doing with Google Wave as a fascinating example (innovative, open standards based, open source implementation).

Microsoft's world domination by operating system monopoly is over, they are a dead man walking.

FaceBook will integrate with Google Wave, or they will become irrelevant.

Blog engine makers will have an opportunity to see blogs on an equal footing with FaceBook, by integrating with Google Wave. Bloggers will have a chance to spark a conversation through their social network, as with FaceBook, but they will also have the chance to have that conversation grow beyond their circle of friends, as with a high profile blog today. As a participant in those conversations, your contribution today is normally "fire and forget" (I always wonder why people bother posting to the comments area of the major newspapers, where there comment is read only by them and one or two lunatics with an axe to grind). Tomorrow, with Google Wave, you can participate in conversations all over the internet, without the need to remember to go back to hundreds of places to check to see if anyone else was interested in what you said.

If they (or someone else) figure out how to build a decent set of filters and ratings into it, Google Wave might make Digg irrelevant.

Re:antimatter in the mix

[fictionpuss]

I saw the Google IO video on Wave and was blown away. Not least because I've been pondering some applications of the "making the world a better place" variety which require such an infrastructure, and the lack of such is a major obstacle to say the least. I'd bet my place in the signup queue that I'm not the only one who feels like their lofty goals are suddenly within reach.

One of their aims is to be as revolutionary as email. When you think of it - blogging, twittering, commenting etc, all follow the email model of a static-content push.

I'm that confident they've got it right that I'm not really wasting much energy in advocating it. Partly for my own selfish reasons - when companies start wanting to make their experience "wave-aware", I predict it'll be like the dot-com boom for a while again. Hopefully with less talk of synergy and pondering whose 'thinking' is in or out of which conceptual boxes. But you can't have everything I guess.

Ever read the history of Facebook? Zuckerberg sounds like a total dick. I hope he tries to fight Wave, I for one, won't mourn the demise of Facebook.

Re:antimatter in the mix

[DJRumpy]

Facebook's way would be a disaster. I can find something on google in about 5 seconds flat. Facebook is just a design disaster. When it comes to relevant news and info from my family members, I'll keep that in mind when I'm looking for the latest deals from Microsoft by being the 1000th person to 'forward this e-mail', or the latest "You might be a redneck" chain letter. My family rates right above low grade moron when it comes to anything technical.

Thanks but no thanks...

Re:antimatter in the mix

[ILikeRed]

Some might even say this is just a part of Microsoft's proxy battle with Google, a quid pro quo after Microsoft's heavy investment in Facebook. But everyone would just laugh if Ballmer said the same stupid thing.

Re:antimatter in the mix

[choongiri]

Thank you for posting about wave. I hadn't come across it yet and it looks totally fascinating. The vision is bold, and the "federation" idea - where you can host your own wave apps, have them interact, and (where appropriate) keep google out of the loop entirely - is ballsy enough to make it the next great step in the internet. Google won't get to mine that data, but it will mean there is far more likelihood of corporate systems etc picking up wave and using it.

Re:antimatter in the mix

[bkaul]

Microsoft's world domination by operating system monopoly is over, they are a dead man walking.

Microsoft is seeing continued growth in earnings, even in a down market, is about to release their strongest client OS offering yet, and is showing notable gains in server and entertainment markets. How exactly is the company a "dead man walking," except in a Linux or Apple fanboy's dream world? I'm not one to idolize Microsoft, but declaring them dead on no basis whatsoever - in a thread about Facebook and Google, no less - is really a bit over the top.

I suppose this is the year of Linux on the desktop, too? Wake me when you come back in contact with the real world. I won't be holding my breath ...

Re:antimatter in the mix

[Miros]

but at the end of the day most users dont care about the technology behind the products that they use, only the direct utility value to them. the miracle of facebook (don't get me wrong, I barely use the damn thing) is that it taught people a new mode of communication that resonated well with them. more importantly, the developers of the service listened to the users and expanded it in ways that accelerated its growth. when the service first launched, it did not even support global group memberships (memberships in groups outside of your individual facebook 'site,' which was of course back when it was still a closed system).

wave is certainly cool but google knows very well that it will be the ability of the developers to find novel applications that everyday users will find fun and exciting to use; applications with strong network effects and possibly ones that do not compete directly with facebook. IMHO, that task (finding something the users will like and then getting them to use it in large numbers) is much more difficult than designing the middle-ware.

Re:antimatter in the mix

[Risen888]

I'm not the GP, but I parsed their comment as saying that the landscape has changed such that even if Microsoft does continue to hold a monopoly position in the desktop OS market, they are no longer culturally relevant.

Re:antimatter in the mix

[lennier]

"Wolfram Alpha and Bing have recently shown that there is room even in search for serious innovation"

Bing innovates? How?

Re:antimatter in the mix

[eihab]

Thank you for posting about wave. I hadn't come across it yet and it looks totally fascinating.

I'm surprised you missed the waves of slashdot articles about Google wave.

Me thinks you need to read Slashdot more often ;)

social networks for reliable information?

[gintoki]

I'm sorry, but am I the only one that sees this as an oxymoron(for the most part)? Its the internet. Like its been mentioned in the comments above, why can't both solutions exist? I for one would use google overr facebook 100% of the time if i needed anything academic. I have many friends, out of them about 3 would actually know anything if i asked them to help me (for example, with a graph involving polar coordinates). Hell, 80% of my friends think that graphs can only ever be a straight line.

Aardvark is annoying

[Gary W. Longsine]

I signed up early and played with it some. It's an interesting concept, but it suffers mightily from a signal to noise ratio which started out at "Digg" level and is falling rapidly to "Reddit". Last week they finally added an option to reply to a query with the single magic keyword "google", and the system will construct a polite reply suggesting that the person who asked, "Where can I download Microsoft Windows security patches" or whatever, will get a polite reply suggesting they try a google search. This won't save it, however. The model is broken, and it's not clear how to fix it.

Really?

[pjt33]

Cool. Time to make friends with some doctors.

Google's data is much better

[thetoadwarrior]

Facebook and everyone's "friends" do nothing but pass around a bunch of bullshit, half truths quizzes to determine who your sexual partner should be. Both models should exist but one is good for learning (Google) and the other is good for a laugh (Facebook).

Don't forget Advertisers!

[StCredZero]

using Facebook in place of Google sounds like many steps back

The questions you ask your friends are going to be more limited. Feedback to advertisers in the form of data will also be more limited, therefore less valuable to advertisers.

You know what would be of *huge* value to advertisers? Social news techniques used *on* advertising. Hulu is in a great position for this. *Let* the users skip (or better yet, 40X fast-forward) the ads! If not that, then let users mod them up or down! Heck, why not tags, like "irrelevant" "obsolete" or "already own?" Advertisers would get immediate feedback on ad reception. Correlation to buying demographic buying habits would be easier to make. Decisions on where to put ad budget wouldn't have to be done at the huge granularity of a particular show or timeslot, but could be targeted directly at demographic cohorts.

Viewers would benefit, as ads would have to get better. Advertisers would benefit from the better, more watchable ads!

Re:Don't forget Advertisers!

[milas]

Both Hulu and Facebook allow you to thumbs up and thumbs down ads. I know Facebook opens a little AJAX pop up asking for some comments when you thumb down, but I've never actually done it on Hulu to know if it's more than a binary entry. On a related note of better, more watchable ads, Hulu should really increase the variety of ads shown to users. I can't even begin to describe my hatred for the HP TouchSmart PC or Carmax as a result of extensive Hulu watching.

Re:Don't forget Advertisers!

[JorDan Clock]

You already can mod advertisements up and down on Hulu....

Re:Don't forget Advertisers!

[ScytheBlade1]

Hulu actually already has this, in the browser. During an ad, if you mouse over the playing video, two icons will appear on the left hand side.

A thumbs up, and a thumbs down.

While they don't let you skip or tag, I think you get the idea. They could absolutely renovate and add more feedback options to end users, but this basic "I like it" vs. "I don't like it" has been around for quite a while.

Facebook cannot replace the internet

[Serious Callers Only]

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline. In Zuckerberg's vision, users will query this 'social graph' to find a doctor, the best camera, or someone to hire - rather than tapping the cold mathematics of a Google search. It is a complete rethinking of how we navigate the online world, one that places Facebook right at the center. In other words, right where Google is now."

Translation from Wired corporate shilling:

Facebook CEO envisions a walled garden controlled by Facebook, where your identity, network of friends, colleagues, peers and family belongs to FaceBook, and where Facebook is the primary source of all information, just as they've always dreamed of being. In Zuckerberg's vision, users will query FaceBook to find anything, rather than using the far more useful and wide-ranging Google search, which might lead you to sites which are not hosted by Facebook. It is a complete rethinking of how we navigate the online world, one that places Facebook right at the center. In other words, right where the real internet is now.

I've never liked sites like Facebook since they started off by trying to make everyone join their site before they can actually access content. Visit their front page, and all you see is an exhortation to give them your email address and some personal details - that tells you everything you need to know about their intentions and the utility of their site. Joining them means being data-mined by Facebook for every ounce of your worth as a consumer. Thankfully Facebook's vision of the future of the internet is about as relevant as Wired magazine is nowadays.

Re:Facebook cannot replace the internet

[Old97]

I wish I hadn't spent all my mod points, because I'd mod yours up.

Yahoo is supposedly the most used destination - it's portals, site and mail services - on the internet. Why is it struggling financially while Google is raking it in? If Facebook usurps Yahoo, why will it somehow be able to "defeat" Google? Google will still be raking it in, in part because it doesn't require an admission fee - your privacy. It's monetization strategy is less obtrusive - it places ads on your page based on what you are doing. If it knows who you are, it's not because they made you fill out a form. That makes it cheaper and less objectionable to more people. It means that it is less likely to have narrow, self-selected population.

Facebook has to get you within its walls under the pretense that it will help you in your social life. Trying to monetize that requires the kinds of objectionable changes to it's terms of use that Facebook keeps getting caught trying to make. Google makes it's money doing site drive bys so to speak. You hardly know they are there.

Re:Facebook cannot replace the internet

[Sporkinum]

Visit their front page, and all you see is an exhortation to give them your email address and some personal details - that tells you everything you need to know about their intentions and the utility of their site. Joining them means being data-mined by Facebook for every ounce of your worth as a consumer.

Which is why I really don't know what is on facebook other than what I have heard through hearsay. Not worth the effort if I can't peek behind the kimono without baring myself.

Re:Facebook cannot replace the internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Get yourself a throwaway email address and make up some personal details. Easy!

What if you don't have any friends on facebook?

[12Iceman]

The google approach is a lot better for those of us without any friends on facebook.

It's just different positions on the same scale

[Sapphon]

Several posts I've read here say things like "My friends may be good for recommending , but they're no good for recommending ", or "I don't want recommendations from people, who are prone to errors, but from algorithms, which are objective and logical."

I can't really understand that argument: the primary difference between Facebook's and Google's search models is the level of data aggregation.

Want to find a website that sells digital cameras? A Facebook search would "ask" your friends, and perhaps their friends, and maybe members of groups and networks you're in, whatever. Then it combines the answers and recommends one or more websites for you.
A Google search differs in that it "asks" everyone.

I've put "asks" in quotations marks because, obviously, there is no directing questioning occurring: the search engines are simply aggregating information from user behaviour. But the process is the same for Facebook as it is for Google. Everything eventually goes back to what users do, which in turned in a result of their subjective choices.

Let's assume a search function that simply returns the most popular site. If my group of Facebook friends visits the top-ranked digital camera page twice as often as the second ranked page, is that result more or less useful to me than if all internet users (whose traffic Google can track) visit Page A twice as often as Page B? The answer depends on how you regard your friends' suitability to make those recommendations.

People who say they prefer Google's results are, at root, saying they prefer the recommendation of the masses over the recommendation of their friends. Sure, there's algorithms that adjust the numbers so that links from more frequented pages count more than links from less frequented pages – but let's not kid ourselves: there is no expert opinion involved here. Google hasn't hired consumer experts to check out digital camera pages and rank them, and neither will Facebook. The important thing is whose data is being used as basis for the calculations.

Now, there is quite clearly a place for "social searching". All of us have, at some point or another, asked people we know to recommend products or services. We don't ask all of our friends, though, just the ones we think know what they're talking about. So Facebook's problem is going to be evaluating the responses of all of our friends to the "question" of "What is the best digital camera website". Comparing its algorithms with Google's is a little (or possibly even a lot) like comparing Google's with Bing's.

What it will (should) come down to for most of us is, "Do I trust my friends or the masses more to give me a good recommendation?". Based on that answer, we'll choose Facebook search or Google, respectively.

Re:It's just different positions on the same scale

[Sapphon]

Edit: first sentence should read: "My friends may be good for recommending ITEM_1, but they're no good for recommending ITEM_2"

Re:Facebook will begin to fade just like myspace d

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing is that people were saying exactly this on /. replies to FB articles two years ago, and FB has only grown.

This isn't a toddler's game of peek-a-boo...just because you closed your eyes on your FB friends doesn't mean they cease to exist. In reality, everyone but you stayed on FB after graduating, and everyone you know who graduated in the last 30 years is gradually joining.

Everyone's about the Goobook

[Anonymous Coward]

But no one likes my idea of the Faceboogle. :-(

My vision of the Internet...

[ActusReus]

... is not being spammed with 200 goddamn "Mafia Wars" requests every time I log in. Seriously, Facebook is slowly approaching MySpace levels of obnoxiousness... and it hasn't gotten better as Facebook started trying to "out-Twitter" Twitter. I used to log in multiple times a day... now I only log in once a week or so to clean up all the annoying notifications. Zuckerberg should have sold back when the economy was booming and his company wasn't facing exposure as a mere fad.

Re:My vision of the Internet...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because its so hard to block an application once and not have to deal with it again. Learn to use the site.

Re:My vision of the Internet...

[novakreo]

... is not being spammed with 200 goddamn "Mafia Wars" requests every time I log in. Seriously, Facebook is slowly approaching MySpace levels of obnoxiousness... and it hasn't gotten better as Facebook started trying to "out-Twitter" Twitter. I used to log in multiple times a day... now I only log in once a week or so to clean up all the annoying notifications. Zuckerberg should have sold back when the economy was booming and his company wasn't facing exposure as a mere fad.

Facebook Purity will clean up the main page. And you can block applications and/or application invites from particular people as desired. You know, where it says "Block this application | Ignore all invitations from this friend" under every single one of those requests?

Re:My vision of the Internet...

[ActusReus]

I referenced Mafia Wars specifically because I find that it CAN'T be blocked. I have blocked it under my App preferences, as well as blocked and marked as spam its incoming notifications. At least in my case, the notifications still get through.

It's possible that Facebook's API is still half-baked and buggy. It's possible that I'm overlooking something. However, I've been in software development for 15 years now... so if it takes more than A COUPLE HOURS of time invested to figure out some feature of your website, then your website sucks.

Zuckerbergs 'vision'

[spire3661]

IM sorry, but its really hard to respect anything this guy says. IMHO, he got really lucky with Facebook, and he simply doesnt have that much intellectual capital.

There is no battle...

[joocemann]

The internet is so big that Google and Facebook are swinging their swords, but are nowhere near each other and cannot really hurt each other. There is room for both 'ways', among the many many other ways the internet will be used as well. There is still a big IRC following and surprisingly a lot of people still on Usenet. I think its silly to act like the Google meme or the Facebook meme is in any way an 'end all' solution or method for use of the internet.

Re:There is no battle...

[ultrabot]

I think its silly to act like the Google meme or the Facebook meme is in any way an 'end all' solution or method for use of the internet.

Not before Google Wave at least.

Apart from that, I find it ridiculous to think that you can find useful information on Facebook (now or in the near future).

Re:There is no battle...

[Luke has no name]

Mod parent up. At least, I hope he's right.

As long as the Internet is maintained as a utility layer over which applications run, all will be well. If ISPs or companies are able to regulate what sites users go to, or give preference to some uses over others, we may be fucked.

Social Norms vs. Market Norms

[cabazorro]

Facebook muscles itself on others by social norms and peer pressure (Like a Thanksgiving dinner you dread to assist)
Sure, go ahead and stay out of Facebook but don't blow a gasket by the the fact that people are talking about YOU on it.

The Market Norms put information exchange as a commodity.
The Social Norms put information exchange as a human activity (like breathing)

The trick is to make the humans feel a safe and familiar experience (like a quiet summer afternoon conversation in you uncle's porch) when
typing away are a social network web site. Trick people using social norms to hand out information to be treated using market norms.

Google knows it's that IT is being perceived as a information crunching machine and subconsciously humans don't trust machines.

Facebook, MySpace and Twitter (notice their names) are percieved as human driven connection "thingy" where humans interact. Like a cork
board outside the supermarket t.

But mark my words. Google is going to do something about that. They will spin off something or buy some start up to to create an aura
of humanity around their algorithms.

A simple GIF with o a floating balloon behind the search field won't do.

You need both

[blcarmadillo]

You can't got the "Facebook way" without using the math behind the "Google way." Therefore imo the future will be a hybrid of the two.

Re:And Facebook would do it, too

[Cross-Threaded]

This might deserve the off-topic mod, but, it might not be.

My knee-jerk reaction in reading that was, "Yep, I don't think organizations who think in that fashion, and make statements like that, are likely to take much business away from Google."

Does nobody see a privacy issue?

[moore.dustin]

I am certainly in the minority here, but I cannot be the only one who does not want there whole social network knowing so much about them. Call me old-fashioned I suppose... but I much rather be a mystery than a well-read novel. I just cant help but think about how many people in business will be bit in the ass by things posted online! You know HR depts. look at these things if they can. If they have a FB dev account in IT somewhere, then maybe the phone interview can get replaced by a FB profile browsing. ;)

Re:Does nobody see a privacy issue?

[StreetStealth]

If they have a FB dev account in IT somewhere, then maybe the phone interview can get replaced by a FB profile browsing. ;)

Not installing apps, not adding a bunch of "friends" you don't know, and setting your profile to "private" will go a long way.

Not posting potentially embarassing things will go even further.

Which would you prefer to live without? FB or GG?

[dk3d]

Not going to find my doctor through either Facebook OR google. Chances are I'm going to use one my mom or dad or sister recommends and chances are that doctor is not a "friend" of theirs on facebook nor are they a "fan" of that Doctor. Facebook, to this point in time, is nothing really more than a "hey, I had 6 beers last night check out my photos", or "oooh, look at my kid jump into the pool," type of site (ok, well a bit more deep than that perhaps). But it's still primarily "entertainment" as I see it. Google has more going for it from a "serious" and business perspective. Search. Maps. Finding pizza close by. Serious stuff. If I had to stop using one site or companies sites, guess which one I could easily do without? Which one would you rather have close by? Google, or Facebook? I rest my case. Another quick point is that from a Job or professional standpoint, hasn't zuckerberg heard that when looking for a job (or trying to keep one), Facebook is not really something you want to be messing around with. Not that YOU will do something wrong, but one of your stupid friends may decide now was a good time to show that above photo of the 6 empty beer cans on your head.

Your mother in law will be delighted to help ..

[Savage650]

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline.

And those family members, friends and peers will be utterly delighted to become an integral part of your private life. Just imagine having your private questions forwarded to your least favorite family member (lets say, your mother-in-law)

• need a doctor? what kind of doctor? GP? VD? need a Shrink?
• need a lawyer? what for? want a divorce? what have you done this time?
• need another mortgage? You were never good enough for my son/daughter!

And that's just one immediate drawback. Other posters have already listed various long-term problems (cultural stratification, deprecation of "outside" information, etc.)

All in all, its a profoundly dumb idea. The fact that some schmuck (excuse me, CEO) calls it "his vision for the internet" just illustrates the kind mental vacuum that accompanies plans like this one:

1) Facebook
2) ???
3) Profit

The Internet is too important to be in the hands of the CEOs

Re:Your mother in law will be delighted to help ..

[Cross-Threaded]

(Score:Googol, Foresight)

Re:Your mother in law will be delighted to help ..

[Undead Waffle]

I for one can't wait to get on Facebook and ask my sister what the best resource for tranny porn is.

(I'm not quite sure which side I'm arguing here.)

Re:Facebook will begin to fade just like myspace d

[Macrat]

while facebook has more of an aura of an "Every-man's social network".

Just the ones who need to get a life.

Where is the Wikipedia of social networking?

[RevWaldo]

Seriously, how hard could it be? A few million for servers and bandwidth, a team of visionaries, developers and project managers that give a fig about privacy, usability, and openness, and you just start building the thing. Social networking without ads or marketing.

(Or perhaps even better, the p2p social network.)

Re:Where is the Wikipedia of social networking?

[Cross-Threaded]

Not to knock down your idea, but, how are you going to raise the few million to get started, and what about the recurring costs to keep it up, and running, without it generating some form of income?

Again, not to knock your idea, but, aren't privacy, and openness, mutually exclusive to some degree, in a social network?

The P2P idea may do quite a bit for the costs, but, I'm still stuck on the privacy part.

Re:Where is the Wikipedia of social networking?

[Cross-Threaded]

Actually, the more that I think about it, the less I understand the GP's idea.

What is meant by the "Wikipedia of social networking"? I think I need someone to spoon feed it to me.

Re:Where is the Wikipedia of social networking?

[Trepidity]

I think he means just in terms of being organized by a mostly-benevolent non-profit organization, which collects some donations to run the servers and implement incremental software upgrades, and doesn't spend all its time trying to sell users' data to advertisers and otherwise "monetize" them.

I think we're fairly lucky that Wikipedia got to its particular niche first; for Wikipedia's many faults, if some corporation had gotten to the idea of "crowdsourced encyclopedia" first, and owned the results, I think the web would be a much worse place. In social networking, a large company did get there first, and I think the web is a worse place for it.

Re:Where is the Wikipedia of social networking?

[Cross-Threaded]

Gotcha, thanks for the reply.

That definitely answers my first question.

Re:Where is the Wikipedia of social networking?

[Cross-Threaded]

And probably the second question, too.

Re:Facebook will begin to fade just like myspace d

[Rovaani]

Facebook's killer app: baby pictures. The 50-something women - a demographic that is big, wealthy and hard to reach in the net - just love to see their grandkids, comment on how cute they are and share the pictures with their friends.

Apples and oranges

[r45d15]

[Facebook], Microsoft, Google, IBM they all fight with each other just because they're in the same field and at the same time they're also all puppets in the hands of CIA and other agencies. Is it still news nowadays that a big IT/social company poses a thread to another big one and hence they fight each other?

Right tool for the right job...

[Amphetam1ne]

If I'm looking for a website about a particular subject I'll google it.
If I'm looking for information on hacking an xbox I'll check xbox-scene.
If I'm trying to figure out where else I've seen an actor in a new tv series then I'll check imdb.
If I want to know what new movies, games and music have just had scene releases then I'll check rlslog.
If I want to know how many of my co-workers "cnt wait ntl teh wknd" or want to know in detail what mundane crap my best mate's gf has been up to then I'll check facebook.

Re:Right tool for the right job...

[Cro Magnon]

If I know that my FB friend has bought a "toy" that I'm interested in, I'd send him a private message to find out his personal experiences with it. That should be more helpful than a google search that will give too much info to find anything useful to me in.

Count me out

[SilverHatHacker]

If Facebook becomes the center of the Web, I'm forking the project.
Seriously though, there's one major difference between Facebook and Google: you have to CHOOSE to be on Facebook.
If a prospective employer looks at Facebook for info about me, they aren't going to find anything. If they Google me, they will find documentation of awards I've won, etc. They can't find out about me from my friends if I don't tell them who my friends are, now can they?

Not gonna happen

[billybob_jcv]

Wait - is this the same Facebook that locks out your account if you post too much? And that refuses to post the rules for how they determine you are "abusing" their system? Facebook is a prime example of the least common denominator becoming the market leader. A horrible user interface, pathetic functionality, zero personalization - and a jillion users. AOL 2.0

Re:Not gonna happen

[Luke has no name]

I like that it isn't as customizable in layout like Myspace is, and that it maintains a somewhat consistent layout, font, and color scheme. That's pretty much the only think I think makes it 'better' than myspace, in terms of technology... more professional.

Re:Not gonna happen

[billybob_jcv]

I'm all for consistency - and I agree that most of the pages on Myspace are so bad they make me nauseous - but I also want Facebook to allow me to have more control over the types of updates I receive on my wall, what "suggestions" I'm willing to get from Facebook and other ways that I interact with the system. I should be able to specify different "types" of friends and put them into friend groups - and then be able to specify what kinds of content each friend group can see. That would allow me to add people like my boss as a friend, and allow him to see only what I want him to see. That's what I mean by personalization - give me options for my facebook experience and the content I publish - even if the entire world see's a consistent template skin.

Re:Not gonna happen

[maxume]

Get a style zapper:

https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html#zap_style_sheets

It doesn't reach the point of fixing the problem, but it pretty much makes it really tiny.

and from there it goes downhill...

[Anonymous Coward]

... envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline. In Zuckerberg's vision, users will query this 'social graph' to find a doctor, the best camera, or someone to hire â" rather than tapping the cold mathematics of a Google search

sounds exactly like the perfect platform for the advertising / marketing industry...

so Mark, find a way to make Facebok profitable yet?

I'm thinking half-way between...

[Anonymous Coward]

When I need info on a new Nikon Camera, i use Google to find a Nikon camera users forum. If I'm looking for a new DSLR in general, i'll Google for a general DSLR camera users forum. Or i may google for reviews of cameras.

If I'm looking for a new tv or want to know about the new model of Samsung LCD TVs, i already know to use AVSForum.

For cooking tips/questions, i might use alt.food.cooking.

My point is that I don't use GOOGLE to give me information/advice on a product or item, i use GOOGLE to get me to experts in the field. Then i ask THEM questions. Facebook (or some other social network) could potentially fill that void by having a way to connect me with experts in particular fields. Right now the facebook groups is not remotely near that.

I certainly have more faith in using PERSONAL recommendations/explanations than just recommendation lists. I think most people do also.

Im ZuckerBorg

[kusut]

You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

A Third Way

[Mandrel]

Instead of Facebook's community assistance, and Google's assistance from the cloud, a third way is Rbate's model of assistance from professional helpers, which includes a search engine that's dedicated to allowing people to find such helpers.

Helpers can not only include the usual forms of professional information, advice, and assistance (professional reviews, aggregators of consumer reviews, and full-service retailers), but consultants and recommendation engines that can offer more personalized service. Relying on reviews takes too much work to find and understand the information you're looking for, while retail service, which has often been pretty clueless, is further suffering due to competition from online and discount outlets.

If you pay these helpers for the help they give rather than the ads they expose or the sales they mediate (retailers & affiliates), you can make it easier for professional help to be free.

Eventually though, people be willing to pay fees for professional assistance for more products than just big ones like investment advice.

NO Facebook in three years.

[cenc]

My predication is that in 3 years time no one will even remember what facebook is. It is not a new concept, and it is not a good buisness modal. When facebook finally crashes and burns in a ball of bankruptcy fire, millions of users are going to be turned off from anything even remotely tagged as "social networking".

Personally, I am still waiting for some sort of big facebook scandal. Say a serial killer, big scam, or a massive virus. Hopefully something that will put it down fast, rather than a slow drip of overblown marketing death that it has already started to be infect with. Most of the users of facebook where not using the internet before the .com bust. This will be their new chance to be schooled in just how not novel the internet really is and how to ignore the new shinny objects on the web.

Re:And Facebook would do it, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Subtle irony doesn't mod well, in my experience.

Zuckerberg's vision is really weird...

[antdah]

Why bring all the crappy downsides of the real world to the Internet?
Then people like me would have to create an Internet inside the Internet to escape the real world-Internet... this just doesn't make sense.

If I want something, and need comparative information on that something, I'd rather go through pages on the net than talk to the people i just happen to know.
One of social networks' great disadvantages is that they are just that: social. And many /.'s aren't.

What is it good for

[hyperion2010]

How many times have I had someone ask me something to which I know the answer? A lot.

How many times have I told the to google it because it is easier for google to explain it than for me? Every single time I have been asked.

What does this tell me about facebook???!?! It tells me that most people on facebook are leaches, they gobble up random stuff spewed out by other users and spew the same narcissistic crap right back out (you are what you eat right?).

If I want someone to help me I'm probably going to have better luck with the impersonal google, because, lets be honest here, IRL most people only give a shit about themselves, and when you bring that IRL attitude online you're going to see exactly the same thing.

Google works because it can troll through the whole internet to find the few people that have been helpful on the internet. Which incidentally happens because google can search topic specific message boards where people with specific knowledge hang out. Facebook can try to replicate this with "groups" and "fan" etc. but that is not what people use facebook, and they will never be able to compete in a world where your friends dont google for you.

Facebook can't face the truth...

[HigH5]

... it's just a freaking social networking site! And for most of their users, it's just that, period. Or a phonebook of 21. century, if you will - it's just nice to have all your friends and relatives at hand, but why spam and be spammed all of the time? The economy of "free" that internet brought with it surely enabled the idiots who speak first and then think later, to spam the others who most of the time have something better to do.

Well, he's just wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline."

Do Not Want. Lots of us Internet types prefer machines over other humans. We don't now, and will never, have a Facebook account. We also despise MySpace and Twit ter, and we don't run IM programs. You won't find our names, hobbies, and dirty laundry anywhere on the Net. We'll let you incorrigibly stupid people take care of that part. Thanks though!