Facebook vs Google
Will Facebook compete directly against Google as a search engine?
Many people find the claim that Facebook will compete directly against Google as a search engine as unfeasible. This is mainly because Google currently has 90.37% of the world market share of search engines. It seems unlikely that Facebook would ever be able to compete with a number like that...but before you form your own opinion, continue reading to understand the logistics.
To start, I will provide a short overview of the two companies:
Facebook:
- Found in 2004
- CEO: Mark Zuckerberg
- Headquarters: Menlo Park, CA
- Revenue: 27.64 Billion USD
- A social network
- 1.86 billion monthly active users
Google:
- Found in 1998
- CEO: Sundar Pichai
- Headquarters: Mountain View, CA
- Revenue: 86.46 Billion USD
- Consumers gravitated toward Google's simple design and user-friendly interface
- Rapid ascent to the top spot of search engines, which the company has yet to relinquish
- Previous competitors, Yahoo, MSN, and Bing, were able to cling to small market shares, yet Google continued to grow unabated
So what does this mean?
Zuckerberg believes that in ten years Facebook will be capable of providing a research and question-and-answer service that will be better than any other search engine. He believes Facebook's in-app experience provides something more personal, where as Google search is confined to internet browsing. People willingly share their personal information with Facebook, therefore this personal component of Facebook challenges the overall web.
When will Facebook do this?
Zuckerberg has created a three, five, and ten year plan. We are currently in the process of the three year plan, which is building new kinds of experiences for sharing. An example of this would be the new Marketplace feature on Facebook, where users are able to share and sell their items. Another example is how Facebook allows you to now directly tag a place when making a recommendation on someones status.
- 3 Year Plan: Building new kinds of experiences for sharing
- Ex: the new Marketplace feature, or allowing people to tag a place when making a recommendation
- 5 Year Plan: Helping people use the network to answer interesting questions or solve problems they have
- 10 Year Plan: Completion of the entire project
3 reasons why Facebook will be successful are...
- Biggest index of data on hand compare to any other search engine
- Graph Search: Artificial intelligence unit is working towards making more data available through Facebook's search engine
- Mobile devices: What the final product will be rolled out on
- allows users to ask Facebook for advice
- problems are solved using voice recognition through phones
Power of friends and family
This is one of the greatest reasons why Facebook will be successful with their goal to compete with Google as a search engine. The power of friends and family is HUGE in today's world.
Nielson reported that people trust friends and family in the 90% range, pure strangers in the 70% range (ratings, recommendations, etc), and brands in the 40-50% range.
Also, according to Forrester, 25% of all digital impressions come from social connections...and this number is predicted to increase
- To put this 25% into perspective, that is 500 billion of the 2 trillion online impressions
- Ex: If you are looking for a moving company, you are more likely to create a Facebook status asking people in the area rather than just Googling "moving company." You don't just want a list of moving companies, you want to know who does the best job.
- Also if a consumer is looking to make a high involvement purchase, such as a GoPro, they may create a status saying, "I want to buy the latest GoPro, any thoughts?" This way they know their responses are from people that they trust, and that may have similar characteristics as them.
What is this Graph Search?
I mentioned Graph Search above in the "3 reasons why Facebook will be successful are" section, but wanted to go into a little more detail. Graph Search is Facebook's search engine. It is intended to help you find answers to questions where the answer isn't fixed, such as, "What are my friends' favorite restaurants?" It is a beta product that Facebook is rolling out slowly to help people find content on Facebook. As of now, it is only available as a limited preview to people using Facebook that own a desktop and speak English. If you are interested in learning more about Graph Search, I have provided the link to a great video featuring Mark Zuckerberg explaining the product more in depth.
Linke to Graph Search video: https://youtu.be/U94DTrjAvuA
Summary
Personally, I think Facebook will be able to compete directly with Google as a search engine. Consumers are wanting more personal information and recommendations, and Facebook will allow these results, as well as concrete results, to all be on one platform. Google does not have nearly the same personal data that Facebook does. Also, Facebook was created later than Google, but I believe that with time they will be able to be a competitor to Google.
I did ask a few people their thoughts on this topic, and many people do not think that anyone will ever be able to surpass Google. They believe that Facebook is already on the down-slope, and in ten years will not be as relevant. Many people also said they'd rather have their friends opinions and concrete information on separate search engines. It was interesting hearing everyones' thoughts and opinions, because we seem to be a culture that loves having everything integrated into one platform!
Only time will tell, but you heard it here first!!
Sources
