I’ll be honest. With the way things were going, I would have put money down on Facebook being worth more than Google in 10 years. Crazy? Maybe. But, here was my line of thinking. That you value product and service recommendations from your friends far above product and service recommendations from random sources found through Google search results.
This can’t even be disputed, can it? So, I thought it was reasonable to believe that Facebook would figure out how to become a search engine as well.
Here was my short-sightedness. I didn’t realize that it was probably much easier for Google to incorporate this social data within its search results. To be fair (to me), that could be because Google wasn’t doing this. Until now, with the release of Google Social Search.
Now your social circle activity is marked with Google search returns. If your friend has “liked” that page, you’ll know, and be much more likely to click through. Granted, this only incorporates off-Facebook social – webpages that have a Facebook “like” button incorporated within it. But, it’s a big jump forward. And now with my money back on Google, they have 10 years to figure out the rest.