Voices
erberg calls a press conference
one day to announce that he has
launched his own search engine
that does everything that Google
does — plus, its searches include
all relevant content on Facebook
(which is not only off-limits to
Google, but, given the nature of
social media, could generate the
most useful and user-specific
search results of all).
Facebook’s launch of its Graph
Search tool, in combination with
its announced alliance with Microsoft’s Bing search service, is
Google’s nightmare come true.
Facebook + Bing = a much enhanced version of Google. While
Google has been able to neutralize
the smartphone threat with the
development of its Android operating system for phones, it will
have a hard time matching that
feat against Facebook’s invasion of
Google’s search business.
Anticipating Facebook’s latest
move, Google has invested heavily
in its own social media business,
Google+. But Google+, despite its
early growth, impressive technology and considerable promise, is
still dwarfed by Facebook and its
one billion active users.
For Google, Facebook (together
with Bing) is an even more for-
PETER
SCHEER
HUFFINGTON
01.27.13
midable rival than Apple. Apple’s
revenue is concentrated in hardware sales, not advertising. But
both Google and Facebook derive
most of their revenue, and nearly
all of their profit, from advertising. Each succeeds at the expense
of the other.
And even if Facebook fails to
trigger a mass shift in ads from
Google’s platform to Facebook’s,
its presence almost certainly will
The digital universe
consist ́