Facebook, Microsoft Team Up Against Google 297
Pickens writes "In a move that could be the biggest threat to Google's search standing yet, Microsoft and Facebook announced that they're teaming up for social search. When someone uses Bing's search engine to look for a new car or a book, she can see which ones her friends liked. While industry watchers say this is an interesting move for search, what's most notable is that Facebook turned to Microsoft for this deal and not to the market leader, Google. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says there is a specific reason he wants to go with Bing: 'They really are the underdog here. They're incentivized to go out and innovate. They have all these smart people and are trying to do all these new things.' The real importance of this week's announcement is that it highlights the growing strategic conflict between Facebook and Google, says analyst Ray Valdes. 'There is a battle for the future of the Web, and it is not about search engines, but about the social Web.'"
Oh dear... (Score:3, Interesting)
Granpa Google (Score:5, Interesting)
They're incentivized to go out and innovate. They have all these smart people and are trying to do all these new things.
I mean, jeez, yeah. The last thing I heard about Google doing was building cars that drive themselves in traffic. That's sooo mid-2000s... Facebing is looking to the future here! Those 500 people that I once knew in HS and college that I haven't talked to in 3+ years and that every time I do I'm reminded of why I don't talk to them (nothing in common, completely antithetical views on most things, too many freaking country-club-kiddies who don't know the difference between Bing and Best Buy)? Those are *definitely* the people who's likes I want showing up first in my search engine results!
Now, to be fair, Microsoft does actually have some pretty sweet research going on. And while most of that research is in things pretty unrelated to search, a lot of Google's research is also pretty unrelated to search. But to say that you're going with Bing over Google because Bing is "incentivized to innovate" sounds like that phrase had it's own paragraph in the contract, right above where the $ was followed by a dozen "0"s.
Hey, gotta pay for the Newark school system somehow, right?
Translation: (Score:5, Interesting)
Translation of Zuckerberg's comments: "Microsoft has loads of cash, and they're willing to cut me an insanely good deal and throw money my way if it's got any chance of giving them a leg up on Google.".
Re:Google - Diaspora (Score:1, Interesting)
or Appleseed
http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/ [appleseedproject.org]
Recipe for disaster (Score:3, Interesting)
ok, Facebook geeks, help me out... (Score:3, Interesting)
I am determined to be the last person on the planet to sign up for Facebook. I hate the concept and I hate the leader.
That said, I think there's one feature that might sway me.
I use Yahoo IM extensively. I love it. I use it on my phone and on my PC. It's relatively anonymous, friends don't know who your other friends are, it's exactly what I am looking for, in a person-to-person communication program.
I know Facebook has a mobile product and a chat product, and, from what I have read, a very complex way of setting up groups of your friends. But is there ANYTHING like "I just want to sign up for facebook to be able to communicate with a few friends, person-to-person via Instant messages. I don't want some wall-shit that people are going to write on. I don't want to share my photos, or my status. I just want to be able to send IM's. And I want it to be SIMPLE to just sign up and do JUST that. With relative anonymity. Without telling each friend who else I am friends with."
Do they have anything like that?
It might work (Score:4, Interesting)
To most of us this sounds abhorrent but it might be commercially successful anyhow.
However, it seems a bit like the Kin... they are betting the phone's entire success on one app (or group of apps) - social.
I think Android and iPhone are successful because they are just platforms to run any kind of app... the users decide what they want.
Re:Plus. (Score:3, Interesting)
Integrating Bing with the FB search function aught to be fairly entertaining.
- Dan.
I like it how MS are trying to stare Google down (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:People use Bing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Its gets funnier. My girlfriend works a gigantic corporation (in the top 20 in the US), and she is forced to use IE 6, or all their legacy apps die. Recently they also installed a completely locked down copy of Firefox on their network, which is only for, and can only open, a single online app that was smart enough to kill their IE6 compatibility.
At least we think it is just for the legacy app, though we may be wrong since the street-level tech people are also flummoxed and (justifiably) annoyed.
On the bright side, from the corporations point of view, eventually they won't have to block most of the internet, since it won't work with their ancient browser. I keep asking her to present Netscape Navigator 4 as an alternative.
Re:Oh dear... (Score:5, Interesting)
I for one identified early on that Facebook and similar sites appeal to a form of vanity I do not personally possess.
Even if I did find that tempting, vanity is not a rational reason to participate in something.
Perhaps the reason you caught flak was really for such a snooty attitude.
While narcissism may be a motivator for some users of facebook, it can hardly be said that vanity is the draw.
The ability to easily connect (and reconnect) with friends present and past is quite valuable to most regular people.
The price may be too high and too hidden, but that doesn't make the value provided any less meaningless.
Microsoft is heavily invested in Facebook (Score:4, Interesting)
Surprised this article and /. summary is so poorly researched. (Then again this is /. what can I expect?)
Microsoft is very heavily invested in Facebook.
They put 240 million dollars into it years ago, they own a substantial stake in the company.
They very likely have one or more key members on the board, and of course would be heavily against any involvement by Google, who is their top competitor.
Re:There is a battle for the future of... (Score:3, Interesting)
A city gives privacy through a type of anonymity. A rural town give privacy through difficutly to obtain and spread information and the difficulty in retaining said information with accuracy for long periods. Privacy has always existed. Society has continually reduced privacy.
Is this the new Axis of Evil ? (Score:2, Interesting)