There is value for businesses via Facebook. Everything from brand lift to reputation management, Facebook is becoming a great tool for business owners to drive consumer engagement. In fact, Facebook has generated so much interest that Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft have all been reportedly trying to acquire part of the social community that has become so popular in 2007.

So amidst rumors of Yahoo being ready to acquire Facebook and Microsoft to buy a minority stake in Facebook for a half a billion dollars, should Google fear Facebook? Facebook is still an emerging Web property, but many believe that Facebook will become even more popular in the future due to their open development platform. Currently Facebook allows developers the ability to build applications off of its platform. Google is said to be gearing up to give developers in its network the ability to pull Orkut data outside of Google and into third-party applications via the APIs. So is Google worried about Facebook at all?

Why Google Fears Facebook

Think Google feels Facebook is not a threat? Well think again. Here are a couple of reasons as to why Google fears Facebook:

• Facebook has experienced a quick rise to the "top" - Facebook is currently the second largest social network on the Web, behind only MySpace in terms of traffic. There is strength in numbers.
• Facebook is the most viral software distribution platform ever
• Facebook is addicting!
• As reported on Googlewatch by Clint Boulton, "Facebook has made no secret of the fact that it wants to go public and will likely allow its search box to return keyword-driven results to generate greater online advertising dollars, which would pose a serious threat to Google."
• Facebook is not some little startup, many believe Facebook's value to be in the $8-12 billion dollar range
• There are nearly 3,400 applications on Facebook with about 100 million installs. These numbers are not small potatoes.
• Microsoft continues to acquire a stake in Facebook. Bill Gates said at the start of the year that Search is a number one priority. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Microsoft needs to do something drastic to compete in the online advertising game. Furthering the existing Microsoft/Facebook partnership might be drastic enough to present some serious competition for Google.

Still think that Google is not worried about Facebook? Well then why was there a so called secretive and highly confidential meeting at Google's headquarters in Mountain View the other day. Topic au jour? The "Facebook Issue". The threat with Facebook is that by enabling keyword search on the site, Google's "keyword search advertising model" faces a serious threat for the first time in it's history. Google is currently the most convenient provider of keyword search driven ads. This is their bread and butter. According to a posted comment by Lee Lorenzen on Techcruch, "Google's dominance in search (and its by product keyword-driven CPC advertising) is threatened when there is another search box staring at, and being used by hundreds, of millions of users for hours each day (i.e., Facebook's people/group/app search box that will have 200+ million users by Dec. 2008 and will be the dominant Social Network in the most lucrative advertising markets in the world)."

The threat from Facebook may indeed be real. Is Facebook a serious threat to Google? When you start holding confidential meetings to discuss a strategy to diffuse the situation. I would say the Facebook issue is already a serious threat. If Google has done their homework correctly, they understand that Facebook works to keep their users on their site and not on a search engine or other social community. Who do you trust more? Your friends and family (via Facebook) or a Search Engine (Google)? Where will you be spending your time online? In a community with friends and family or on a plain white Google results page? It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the next few months and years.

I will say this, very few companies are as innovative and as creative as Google. While they have enjoyed phenominal growth and profit over the past five years. If anyone has the power, knowledge, resources and technology to stay on top it is Google.


Copyright 2007, Enquiro Search Solutions, Inc.