Is the Animosity between Facebook and Google Growing?

Facebook is the largest social network in the world with over a billion active users and Google has monopolized the search engine world with over 67% of the market share. It comes as no surprise that these two companies do not talk of each other in glowing terms. The rivalry between these two companies began when Facebook decided to form a close partnership with Google’s competitor – Microsoft, with Microsoft having a 1.6% stake in Facebook. Till last year, the acrimonious relationship between Facebook and Google was only speculated upon by Internet users and fuelled by social media reporters as both sides decided to remain quiet on the issue.

Facebook Launches Graph Search – Do We Hear More Competition for Google?

Facebook has just launched what Mark Zuckerberg has christened “the third pillar” of the Facebook experience – the Graph Search. Is this Facebook’s answer to Google’s Knowledge Graph? The Graph Search is still in the Beta phase but it is a tool that helps navigate the Facebook Graph. The Facebook Graph is the name given to the tools that allow people to map their relationships with other Facebook users and their interests. As Facebook has over a billion users, this is a huge addition to Facebook. Along with the News Feed and the Facebook Timeline, the Graph Search will help define user experience with Facebook.

Free from Anti-Trust Lawsuit – Google is Now Actively Developing Google 2.0

The United States Federal Trade Commission or FTC decided to drop its plans of slapping Google with an antitrust lawsuit in the beginning of this month. Google is wasting no time and is taking this as a green signal to aggressively pursue the development of Google 2.0. Google 2.0 will transform the Google search engine into an answer engine being able to answer users’ questions instead of just returning results that match the typed keywords.

Google is Making Attempts to Capture the Developing World

In the hopes of becoming the number one search engine in developing countries, Google is slowly launching its service across various countries allowing people to access its web pages even with low bandwidths. Developing countries like the Philippines, Brazil, India, etc. have huge populations with most of the people being very tech savvy. However, these countries lack advanced network infrastructures, limiting the internet bandwidths available to the masses. Google just launched a service known as Free Zone that allows people to access the Web, including Google Ads, from basic hand-held devices. This service aims to capture the burgeoning market in these developing countries amounting to billions of people.

French Government wants Google to Pay for Linking News Articles

This may sound shocking but may soon become reality. The French government is considering bringing a new bill into action that will force the search engine giant to pay for the links of newspapers that it displays in online searches. Google has claimed that if this new bill is passed, it could threaten the very existence of the company.

Google’s Competitors Are Crying Foul

Billions of people worldwide use Google search daily. In the years after Google was created, it has managed to monopolize the search engine market. Google has used its popularity as a search engine to leverage other Google products and this does not sit well with other software companies and travel websites. Companies like Microsoft, TripAdvisor and Expedia must now bow down to the rules set by Google to ensure that their websites get top billing in web searches. Google’s supposed victims are now filing complaints with regulators even though they have stated that Google’s ranking algorithms do not affect their revenues.