Facebook Killed the Google Star
Mar. 9 2011
Not long ago, Google (GOOG) was dismissed as just a fancy technology. Sure, it generated great results — and was fast. But could it make money? Well, of course, it did not take long for Google to unleash its power and become a cash machine.
Now it looks like Facebook is the the next Internet killer. And we are just seeing the early signs of how it will wield its awesome potential. For example, this week the company announced a deal with Warner Bros. to rent movies. The immediate result was for Netflix (NFLX) to see a drop in its stock.
But, ironically, the main victim is Google. “Until now, regular, bare-bones text-based keyword search has been the way most of us found things on the web,” said Suranga Chandratillake, who is the founder and CEO of blinkx.
But the future will mean that search will go through a transformation. That is, it will become more social and interactive. And with over 500 million users, Facebook is the destination for this.
Ok, what about the monetization? Facebook is still in the early stages but the cash should really start to pile up soon (hey, just in time for an IPO, huh?)
“Social search and discovery lets you find information or videos anyway, tapping into the experts in your own social network and beyond to uncover them in a way regular search simply cannot,” said Suranga. “This leads to better, less annoying, more relevant ads for the viewer and improved returns for the advertiser. This relevancy is crucial as, according to comScore, 89 million people in the United States are going to watch 1.2 billion videos today.”
