Image via CrunchBaseComputerWorld: Google, Facebook battle for 'future of the Web': the biggest threat to Google's search standing yet. ..... Now when someone uses Microsoft's Bing search engine to look for a new car or a book, she can see which ones her Facebook friends liked. It will now be easier for searchers to get their friends' opinions before they make purchasing decisions..... the search giant handled 72.15% of all U.S. searches last month..... "Let's face it, Bing has been a big disappointment, but this could act as a differentiator," said Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group Research. "People prefer Google to Microsoft, but they prefer Facebook to Google. .... For major Facebook users, I believe 'social search' is attractive, and many are likely to switch to Bing for all searches... Not only does [Google] lose users, but they lose young users."Microsoft did search. It was not a big deal. Then it revamped it and called it Bing, but it's not Google. There was a major marketing push. But I was not alarmed on behalf of Google. When Microsoft got Yahoo to hand over its search queries to Bing, I predicted that would only result in a net loss for Yahoo with no gain for Bing, and so actually a net gain for Google.
But Bing partnering with Facebook is different. I think this story is being reported wrong. This is not Bing teaming up with Facebook. It is the other way round. This is Facebook teaming up with Bing. This is not Bing finally having found that thing with which to compete with Google Search. This is Facebook coming into search territory. This is big.
This is not to suggest Google will now see a decline. Google will keep growing. And Facebook will grow like crazy. This is the internet going much more mainstream. People are spending time on Facebook without taking their eyes off the many Google products.
This is a significant development. This throws further light on Facebook's ambitions, if that was necessary. But this is not necessarily bad news for Google, not big, bad news. This is absolutely not the end of Google.
But I see no reason why Facebook will not offer the same to Google. I mean, if the idea is to become relevant to as many search queries as possible, Google is a bigger bet than Bing. No?
Facebook sees Google as competition, but it does not see Microsoft as competition. That might partly be it. Or maybe even fully.
This just might be the first serious competition Google Search ever faced. Google's best bet is to get Zuck to give them the same deal. That would be a win win for Facebook and Google.
In The News
The Skype Blog: Skype with Facebook integration and group video calling: We’ve integrated the Facebook News Feed and Phonebook into Skype ..... Video calling accounted for approximately 40% of all Skype-to-Skype minutes in the first half of this year
BBC: Google's profits lifted by higher advertising revenues: a 32% rise in profits. .... Our core business grew very well, and our newer businesses - particularly display and mobile - continued to show significant momentum.
Google: Google Announces Third Quarter 2010 Financial Results: Google-owned sites generated revenues of $4.83 billion, or 67% of total revenues ..... Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.20 billion, or 30% of total revenues ..... Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $3.77 billion, representing 52% of total revenues
Apple Insider: Google announces $1 billion in mobile revenue: Search queries from mobile devices have grown 5 times over the last couple of years, with most of the queries coming from Android phones ..... Carol Bartz believes iAd will "fall apart" as Apple's high level of control drives away advertisers. Adidas is rumored to have canceled a $10 million iAd contract because Apple had exerted too much control over the process.
Reuters: Google trumps Wall Street targets, shares soar: "This is the best performance they've had in three years. We're back to the old Google we know and love" ..... the $2.5 billion run rate in display advertising was a gross number, meaning that some of that revenue is paid to Google's partners. ..... On Wednesday, Facebook and Microsoft unveiled improvements to Microsoft's Bing search engine that incorporate personalized Facebook data, such as restaurant recommendations from a person's friends, into search results. ..... Google has been on an acquisition spree, buying more than 20 companies in 2010, including several companies that were developing social networking technology. ..... YouTube online video site was now "monetizing" over 2 billion views a week, a rise of 50 percent from a year earlier ..... Google's 9-percent rise in extended trading, to $590, would be the biggest single-day gain since November 2008.
Seattle PI: The Microsoft Blog: Ballmer: Google's ability to monetize search 'surprised me': "Google tends to throw a lot more things against the wall."
Fast Company: Facebook Credits Get More Powerful, Hint at Facebook's Money-Minting Future: Facebook has designs on all sorts of Web-dominating strategies for the future..... Facebook gets a 30% skim off every transaction in Credits .... Credits could almost become a de facto world currency .... Facebook's potential expansions--from music downloads to premium photo sharing--all paid for with Facebook's own virtual currency.
The Bing-Facebook Alliance: Six Things You (and Google) Should Know: the new Bing search features that Microsoft and Facebook unveiled today are going to upend the search business..... Launched a store that no one "Liked?" you’re not going to show up in the search results. .... once you introduce a social dimension to search results, you could actually start representing search results—visually—in new ways .... he said that, ultimately, the company would like to work with all players in search.
For Millennials, Brands May Be as Important as Religion, Ethnicity: Millennials--the generation born between 1980 and 1995--relate to brands in deep and complicated ways .... Edelman, the world's largest PR firm. .... Volunteering to try new products and review some of them online is a "core value," according to Edelman .... the majority of those surveyed had recommended products to friends and family via a social network
