Facebook is the new Google

Mark Zuckerberg announced the arrival of the Open Graph at F8, Facebook's developer event in April 2010, promising to change the face of the web. He's looking to take on Google's dominance and to make search take a back-seat to personal recommendation. It's a powerful idea, but will it work.

First there was Google

Google revolutionised the web by making search big, then by making it profitable. By producing the most effective search engine, one that actually gave you what you were looking for, Google made the web deliver. People actually found what they were looking for, so they came back and looked again. At the beginning, the sole focus of the company was on the quality of its search product; everything else, including revenue, came second.

Then they found a way to make money. Adwords revolutionised advertising online by using the power of the web to find a new way to advertise based on a model that understood the new economics of the web.

Now there is Facebook

Facebook is reaching a tipping point, where its number of users and the amount of time those users spend on the site have grown to such an extent that they can try set the agenda. Facebook's growth continues unabated, despite some poor reaction around privacy and generally poor treatment of users; it's on the way to achieving the ubiquity that Google achieved in search.

The Open Graph could be that newagenda. The premise is that instead of deciding what to read or buy online based on the recommendation of a search engine, you do it based on the recommendation (or "Likes") of your friends. In simple terms, the Open Graph allows external websites to link to Facebook's data, displaying a list of your friends that "Like" the content you are looking at. It's very powerful. (To see it in action, first become my friend, then "like" this story!)

There is still a long way to go. First they've got to persuade site owners to use the Open Graph and surfers to get on with "Liking". Then, crucially, they've got to find a way to monetise it!

Maybe not yet

So it's certainly premature to say that Facebook is the next Google, but it's certainly leading the chasing pack and it has a plan that just might work.

Published by: Mr Tom Barnes

Published 7th July, 2010

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