Today, the Google-Facebook rivalry isn't just going strong, it has evolved into a full-blown battle over the future of the Internetits structure, design, and utility. For the last decade or so, the Web has been defined by Google's algorithmsrigorous 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 hirerather 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.
All this brave talk might seem easy to dismiss as the swagger of an arrogant upstart. After all, being Google is a little like being heavyweight champion of the worldeveryone wants a shot at your title. But over the past year, Facebook has gone from glass-jawed flyweight to legitimate contender. It has become one of the most popular online destinations. More than 200 million peopleabout one-fifth of all Internet usershave Facebook accounts. They spend an average of 20 minutes on the site every day.
Facebook has stolen several well-known Google employees, from COO Sheryl Sandburg to chef Josef Desimone; at least 9 percent of its staff used to work for the search giant. And since last December, Facebook has launched a series of ambitious initiatives, designed to make the social graph an even more integral part of a user's online experience. Even some Googlers concede that Facebook represents a growing threat. “Eventually, we are going to collide," one executive says.
It is remarkable that the most powerful company on the Web would feel threatened by one that has yet to turn a profit. (Last year, one insider estimates, Facebook burned through $75 million plus the $275 million in revenue it brought in; Google made $4.2 billion on an astounding $15.8 billion in net revenue.) And even Facebook executives concede that Google has secured an insurmountable lead in search advertisingthose little text ads that pop up next to search resultswhich accounts for about 90 percent of Google's net revenue.
But they say they are going after an even bigger market: the expensive branding campaigns that so far have barely ventured online. Once, Google hoped an alliance with Facebook would help attract those huge ad budgets. Now, instead of working together to reach the promised land of online brand advertising, Facebook and Google are racing to see who can get there first.
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