The Heat Is On
The cold war between Google and Facebook just warmed up a whole lot, and this time it’s Google with its fingers on the dial.
Garrett Rogers reports that Google is releasing tools for developers to begin building social applications for the iGoogle homepage, built on the OpenSocial API. For those who don’t speak geek, this basically means that individuals and companies are able to tap into the social graph you’ve created through Google — primarily through your Gmail contacts — to build useful gadgets for your homepage. Users will be able to see “updates” from their friends (see right column of image), paralleling Facebook’s News Feed and Mini Feed features
Who cares, right? Well, as Garrett points out, the potential for a coup is enormous:
I wonder if this will have a significant impact on Facebook since there are twice as many people who set Google as their default browser homepage than Facebook according to comScore? Who knows, Google might win by default if they get it just right.
With this move, Google is forging together two movements that it has been leading under much scrutiny and controversy: scaling and automation. Together, they become what I’m going to call scaled automation. Like Tom Friedman says, if you name an issue you own it… so if this term somehow becomes popular, well, remember you heard it here first.
Huh?
For those of you who may not be following, let me try to explain. Facebook is powerful and popular because it helps you build and use your social graph within its walls. Because it tightly controls the operating environment, it is able to ensure that you have a stable and somewhat uniform experience. Think of it as the Mac of social networking, as compared to a PC. Facebook applications, a recent phenomenon, let outside developers create useful, fun, and sometimes stupid programs that tap into your social graph in Facebook — but all of the interaction takes place within Facebook’s walls. If you’re going to throw a sheep at someone, you have to log in to Facebook first.
Google’s homepage gadgets, while they do appear on iGoogle, actually exist across a range of Google services. Gadgets can be downloaded for use with Google Desktop, for example, or embedded on your own webpage. If Facebook is a walled garden for applications, then Google is a national park. That’s the “scaled” part of scaled automation.
Unlike Facebook, Google does not ask you to independently build and confirm your social graph. Every time you email someone from Gmail, that contact is added to your address book. If that contact is on Gmail and you email them enough, Google presumes that you are close enough to appear in each other’s Google Talk and Google Reader shared items lists. Google wants to automatically replicate your social graph, while Facebook — at this time — can only assist you in manually reproducing it. Google doesn’t want you to have to expend effort to tell it who your friends and associates are — it thinks it can do it for you. There’s the “automation” of scaled automation.
Scaled automation is sure to be controversial, simply because it approaches social networking in a completely different way than we are used to or, frankly, comfortable with. Are you prepared to start seeing updates from your friends all over the web? Can you imagine how Google’s ad network will flourish when it is able to tap into your friends’ “social” actions to target you and attact your attention and clicks? Though it’s just a tiny step right now, this is huge. Huge.
What do you think of Google’s move and this approach that they’re taking? Awesome? Frightening? Reasonable? Outrageous? Inevitable?
Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user VoIPman.
So I now have Facebook chat, and I have to say: it’s not doing anything for me. I’m much more likely to take advantage of expanded offerings from Google in the social realm–just as I’m already using Gchat, but won’t be using Facebook Chat much at all. There’s one side of Google that bothers me from a social networking angle: some people I email are not really close friends or even distant acquaintances. When I see their name show up in my chat box (or, as these social tools expand, I see their updates through my Google account), I have to scramble to block them. Now, maybe selectively LIMITING your social graph is more beneficial than selectively EXPANDING (Facebook) your social graph…but it makes for some uncomfortable closeness with that random guy who bought your old guitar amp off Ebay (stop trying to chat with me, dude).
Exactly, and I think therein lies the impending controversy. As I mentioned in this post, Google is good at figuring out who you communicate with… but it’s not good at figuring out who’s a friend and who’s just a contact.
In my opinion, there’s a middle ground to be had. If Google detects that you e-mail someone a lot, can’t it just have a little notification that says “We noticed you e-mail X a lot. Want to add him as a friend?” Only then would you be able to exchage shared Google Reader items, talk on GChat, and — soon — see their updates on iGoogle, etc. It’s kind of a prompted opt-in, which I think is more than acceptable.
And I agree, though I haven’t used it much yet, Facebook Chat is not that great. I think it’s mostly because people don’t just “hang out” all day on Facebook like they do on Gmail. Maybe this will change over time, but I don’t think it will really ever compete with GChat, especially as Google continues to upgrade their social services.
You know it’s interesting that Google uses the “include everyone unless explicitly instructed not to” approach in its social apps, because it’s the same philosophy that pissed off a bunch of authors included (without permission) in the Google Libraries project. I’m not sure that Google wants to base its offerings on a “We’ll do what we want and you can sort out the details” philosophy.