
Google's Response to Facebook: Maka-Maka - brlewis
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/29/googles-response-to-facebook-maka-maka/
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andrewfong
Privacy issues aside, this would be awesome. If I'm reading this properly,
this isn't just Orkut 2.0 -- it's essentially building a "social networking"
API for every part of Google. I dunno about you, but an app that integrates
with GMail somehow sounds more useful than your typical Facebook app.

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ajkates
As scary as it may seem to some of us, I can't wait to see it come to
fruition.

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edw519
"Google already has so much data on you, depending on how many Google apps you
already use."

Call me a little old school, but I think like my Paulie in Goodfellas. He
didn't want anyone hearing what he said and he didn't want anyone hearing what
was said to him.

I use Google for search and Yahoo for apps. Imagine any one entity knowing who
I am AND what I search for. Ewwww.

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asdflkj
You could always just search through a proxy. Am I missing something?

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brlewis
If you're logged in to (for example) gmail in one tab, and then you search in
another tab, google knows who you are via a cookie. You would have to both
search through a proxy and suppress the cookie.

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oditogre
I always log in, check my mail, and log out...

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alaskamiller
Social networking is but an AOL paradigm. Yahoo and Google and Microsoft all
have the elements of a social networking but chose not to pursue it, or half-
assed it over the year, but I have more faith in Google being able to pull it
off and succeeding than the other companies or even Facebook. But then again,
the point of Facebook was never to care about social networking, they aspire
to be an advertising powerhouse.

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aston
The point of Facebook was always to care about social networking, and they
still haven't public announced an aspiration to be an advertising powerhouse.

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alaskamiller
That's ridiculous, they care about "social graphs". If I'm not somebody's
friend I can't view their profile. I don't meet people on Facebook like I do
with any other service or in real life, I simply establish an alternative
identity and throw all my pictures and mundane details into it.

As for their aspirations of being in advertising not being announced? And?

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aston
You're arguing semantics mostly. The bottom line is, Facebook is doing a piss
poor job of being an advertising marketplace, and a pretty good job of being a
social network.

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nkohari
I think this is going to change very soon. They're close to unveiling a
targeted ad system. As smart as AdSense is (targeting ads to content of a
page), targeting them to the specific preferences of a user is even more
compelling.

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aston
I hope you're right, and I hope it's awesome. My best guess, however, is even
if they've got such a system, it's sure to be immature and hence not very
compelling. Facebook doesn't have near the advertising talent Google does, so
I wouldn't be so quick to compare their so-far-nonexistent ad system to the
behemoth that is AdSense.

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nkohari
I wasn't necessarily saying that it would be an AdSense killer, just that it
could be an equally interesting take on targeted ads. I definitely agree that
it'll take time.

