[clicks]

Those two sentences make perfect sense. People go to Facebook to socialize, to Google to search. This naturally leads to the conclusion of Facebook going with very constricted models of monetization like having intrusive ads, selling your private information, showing sponsored posts. Google is in a more natural position to advertise, it doesn't have as much to gain by showing you annoying ads as Facebook. In addition to all of this, Google does not seem afraid to venture out into completely new areas. I'm not saying Google is an innocent saint that'll never do any wrong, but it's pretty clear Google's future is markedly brighter than Facebook's. It'll be interesting to see how Google+ shapes in the coming years. One interesting possibility is Google+ having no ads at all (it currently does not have any) for all of its life, because Google can afford to do that and everyone will like that.

[threeseed]

Google's future is markedly better than Facebook's ? No way.

Facebook has stickiness and the network effects to keep people on it. Google has none of that. If a better search engine appeared overnight everyone would switch to it and that would be the end of Google. If a better social network appeared very few people would switch. In fact I would postulate that if Microsoft managed to convince Mozilla and Apple to change the default search engines to Bing that it could be almost enough to send Google into a death spiral.

[rednukleus]

How many people do you know who use gmail? Every time they go on the webmail client they are pretty much back on Google's homepage.

Between all the people who use Android, Chrome, gmail etc, Google would be just fine if Apple and Mozilla changed default search engines.

At the moment, Facebook are a one trick pony that many people can easily live without.

[mindcrime]

Facebook has stickiness and the network effects to keep people on it

People thought that about Myspace as well.

If a better social network appeared very few people would switch

Yeah, right. A wholesale exodus from Facebook isn't just possible, it's likely, if not inevitable, IMO. Just based on historical trends... the Internet is fickle, man.

[praptak]

> If a better social network appeared very few people would switch.

As evidenced by MySpace? With social networks you can split your time between many, the worse ones' usage gradually decaying. The network effect is there but it's not like everybody has to switch at the same time.

[tikums]

Didn't Mypace also enjoy a network effect?

[iamshs]

No they don't make perfect sense, in fact they should switch companies. Google monetizes on my privately shared data on email, meant only to be consumed among people that i contact privately. It tapping and constructing my future is as much an invasion of privacy as there can be. Now FB monetizes on my publicly shared data, on statuses and hobbies that I want to share with the world voluntarily. View nice little snippets of videos that I view on other timelines. FB Graph is a idea of such niche venture for them. FB does not have to imitate Google, Apple is there to provide competition on that behalf. FB has to just be an essential time pass for masses, just more than Google.