從許多方面來看，Google+就是拉里?佩奇的社交網(wǎng)站。Google+的開發(fā)工作早在佩奇擔(dān)任公司CEO之前便已經(jīng)開始，但他從一開始就密切關(guān)注項(xiàng)目的進(jìn)展。最初幾個(gè)月里，佩奇每周五上午11點(diǎn)都會(huì)參加項(xiàng)目團(tuán)隊(duì)的每周產(chǎn)品評(píng)測(cè)會(huì)議。為了密切跟蹤項(xiàng)目進(jìn)度，佩奇甚至把辦公室和高管團(tuán)隊(duì)的主力都搬到Google+團(tuán)隊(duì)所在的大樓。他為項(xiàng)目提供了大量的資源，使其成為谷歌誕生13年以來最大規(guī)模的一次工程投入。此外，他還將剛鐸提拔為公司高級(jí)副總裁，直接對(duì)他負(fù)責(zé)。佩奇還將數(shù)千名谷歌員工的一部分獎(jiǎng)金與公司在社交業(yè)務(wù)上的表現(xiàn)掛鉤。 Google+也是佩奇為使谷歌恢復(fù)曾經(jīng)的靈活、負(fù)責(zé)的態(tài)度而進(jìn)行的第一次嘗試，同時(shí)也是為了避免陷入“創(chuàng)新者的窘境”，這個(gè)曾經(jīng)使許多成功的公司深陷困境的頑癥。在Google+項(xiàng)目中，公司拋棄了以往放任自流，甚至是無秩序的創(chuàng)新方式，代之以自上而下的方式。谷歌另外一位聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人謝爾蓋?布林表示，允許“百花齊放”對(duì)谷歌依然非常重要，但“在所有花都綻放之后，你會(huì)希望能把它們收集起來，做成緊湊的花束?！?/p> 谷歌要實(shí)現(xiàn)在社交領(lǐng)域的野心或許確實(shí)需要一些這樣的鐵律。谷歌之前對(duì)Facebook領(lǐng)地進(jìn)行的幾次攻勢(shì)均鎩羽而歸。2004年，幾乎在Facebook面世的同時(shí)，谷歌就推出了第一個(gè)社交網(wǎng)站Orkut，但目前除了在巴西市場(chǎng)，Orkut網(wǎng)站早已被人遺忘。2007年，為了對(duì)抗Facebook，谷歌聯(lián)合Myspace和其他社交網(wǎng)站，推出了社交網(wǎng)站開放式平臺(tái)Open Social，結(jié)果也以失敗而告終。兩年后，谷歌又推出了Wave，但僅僅幾個(gè)月之后便被打入冷宮。2010年，谷歌推出Buzz，試圖將Gmail用戶強(qiáng)行拉入社交網(wǎng)站，但很快這便成為谷歌在社交領(lǐng)域中的最大敗筆：Buzz將人們的Gmail聯(lián)系人公開給其他人，導(dǎo)致美國(guó)聯(lián)邦貿(mào)易委員會(huì)（Federal Trade Commission）介入調(diào)查，并強(qiáng)制要求谷歌修改其隱私政策，同時(shí)必須接受政府監(jiān)控，時(shí)長(zhǎng)為20年。 Buzz的慘敗讓谷歌警醒。谷歌內(nèi)部一些最具影響力的工程師開始提出，社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)將給谷歌帶來致命的威脅。隨著網(wǎng)絡(luò)開始以人為核心，尤其是圍繞Facebook的人際關(guān)系圖進(jìn)行重建，谷歌的影響力將被逐漸侵蝕，最終被時(shí)代所拋棄。這種論調(diào)讓谷歌高層大為光火，于是，一個(gè)雄心勃勃的項(xiàng)目很快出爐。這個(gè)名為翡翠海（Emerald Sea）的項(xiàng)目不僅要讓谷歌成為Facebook的強(qiáng)勁對(duì)手，而且要圍繞社交媒體對(duì)谷歌現(xiàn)有的產(chǎn)品進(jìn)行改革。（剛鐸選擇翡翠海作為項(xiàng)目代號(hào)，預(yù)示著全新的海岸線與暴怒的海水并存。） 經(jīng)過一年多的醞釀，今年6月份，谷歌終于推出了Google+。結(jié)果如何？這個(gè)社交網(wǎng)站針對(duì)用戶的喜好，從Facebook中汲取精華，去除糟粕。你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)Google+的主頁與個(gè)人資料頁、照片與游戲標(biāo)簽，當(dāng)然還有無休止的好友更新都與Facebook非常類似。谷歌+1鍵的作用類似于Facebook的Like鍵。不過，F(xiàn)acebook一直因肆意踐踏用戶的隱私選擇權(quán)而頗受指責(zé)，于是Google+則使用戶可以自行決定其所發(fā)布內(nèi)容的查看權(quán)限。Facebook無法清晰地將同事、同學(xué)和好友分開，而Google+則推出圈子功能，用戶可以很直觀地將關(guān)注對(duì)象進(jìn)行分類。Zynga等應(yīng)用開發(fā)商在Facebook平臺(tái)上獲得的收入，30%將屬于Facebook所有，而Google+表示，目前其抽取的比例僅為5%。自從Google+推出以來，谷歌推出了100多個(gè)新功能，而且，佩奇表示未來還將推出更多新功能。在硅谷，幾乎所有人都曾認(rèn)為，谷歌根本無法與Facebook競(jìng)爭(zhēng)，但Google+的表現(xiàn)卻讓所有人——包括Facebook的忠實(shí)擁躉——大跌眼鏡。喬?格林就表示：“Google+非常出色。”喬?格林是扎克伯格在哈佛大學(xué)（Havard）的室友，他創(chuàng)辦了慈善社交網(wǎng)站Causes，該網(wǎng)站開發(fā)的應(yīng)用程序目前在Facebook上運(yùn)行。 譯者：阿龍/喬樹靜 | In many ways, Google+ is Larry Page's social network. Early work on Google+ predated Page's ascent to the top post, but he has been intimately involved with the project from the start. In the initial months, Page dropped by every Friday at 11 a.m. for the group's weekly product reviews. To keep close tabs, Page moved his office and much of the executive suite to the building where the Google+ team was sequestered. He blessed the project with massive resources, making it one of the largest engineering endeavors Google has undertaken in its 13-year history, and he elevated Gundotra to the post of senior vice president, reporting directly to him. Page also tied a portion of the bonuses of thousands of Googlers to how well the company did in social. Google+ is also the first test of Page's plan to transform Google into the nimbler, more accountable company it once was, and in the process avoid the Innovators' Dilemma, the paralysis that grips so many successful companies. In the Google+ project, the company's freewheeling and sometimes chaotic approach to innovation was cast aside -- replaced with a more top-down style. Allowing a thousand flowers to bloom may still be important at Google, says Sergey Brin, the other co-founder, but "once they do bloom, you want to put together a coherent bouquet." Maybe some discipline is what Google's social ambitions needed. Google's previous attacks on Facebook's turf were an embarrassment. Orkut, Google's first social network, was born alongside Facebook in 2004 but is largely irrelevant outside of Brazil. Open Social, a Google-led effort in 2007 to rally MySpace and other social networks into an alliance to balance the clout of Facebook, flopped. Two years later Google introduced Wave, only to kill it after a few months, and Buzz, a 2010 attempt to shoehorn Gmail users into a social network, quickly turned into Google's biggest social faux pas: Buzz exposed people's Gmail contacts to others, triggering a Federal Trade Commission investigation that forced Google to revamp its privacy policies and accept government monitoring for 20 years. The Buzz fiasco was a wake-up call at Google. Some of its most high-profile engineers started making the case that the social web posed a vital threat to Google. As the web was being rebuilt around people -- and, in particular, around Facebook's graph of human relationships -- Google could end up on the sidelines, its relevance eroding by the day. The message rattled Google's top brass, and an ambitious project -- called Emerald Sea -- not only to create a credible rival to Facebook but also to transform Google's existing products around social media, quickly took shape. (Gundotra picked the name Emerald Sea to suggest both new horizons and stormy waters.) After more than a year of gestation, Google finally introduced Google+ in June. The result? A social network that cloned much of what people like about Facebook and eliminated much of what they hate about Facebook. You'll find familiar home and profile pages, tabs for photos and games, and of course the endless updates from friends. Google's +1 button works much like Facebook's Like. But where Facebook is perpetually accused of running roughshod over people's privacy preferences, Google+ made it very easy to decide who can see what users post on the site. Facebook lacked a good way to separate workmates from classmates from real friends, so Google+ was built around Circles, an intuitive way to group people in buckets. Facebook takes 30% of the revenue that app developers like Zynga make on its platform, so Google+ said it would take only 5% for now. Since the launch, Google has rolled out more than 100 new features, and Page says there is much more to come. In Silicon Valley, where everyone had given up on the idea that Google could compete with Facebook, Google+ caught everyone -- including Facebook loyalists -- by surprise. "Google+ was impressive," says Joe Green, one of Zuckerberg's Harvard roommates and the founder of Causes, an application built to run on Facebook. |
網(wǎng)絡(luò)向社交化的轉(zhuǎn)變?cè)诜椒矫婷娓淖冎竞拖M(fèi)者。最先受到?jīng)_擊的行業(yè)包括廣告業(yè)。目前，美國(guó)310億美元在線廣告市場(chǎng)中，谷歌的份額達(dá)到41%，而且在搜索廣告市場(chǎng)，谷歌一直雄踞榜首。但搜索廣告的增長(zhǎng)正在放緩，廣告商開始將有限的資金投放到Facebook。畢竟，F(xiàn)acebook擁有8億用戶，而且許多用戶在Facebook上停留的時(shí)間遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過其他網(wǎng)站。（見頁底圖表）預(yù)計(jì)今年Facebook的顯示廣告收入將增長(zhǎng)81%，而谷歌顯示廣告收入的增長(zhǎng)幅度預(yù)計(jì)為34%。雖然谷歌和Facebook讓我們認(rèn)為兩家公司仍有無限的成長(zhǎng)空間，但千萬不要被這種假象所迷惑。正如美國(guó)投資銀行Stifel Nicolaus的分析師喬丹?羅翰所說：“如果谷歌與Facebook不直接交鋒，搶占對(duì)方的市場(chǎng)份額，它們根本不可能達(dá)到投資者的期望，在顯示廣告市場(chǎng)實(shí)現(xiàn)數(shù)十億美元的增長(zhǎng)幅度。” 現(xiàn)在的佩奇就像十幾年前的比爾?蓋茨，他發(fā)現(xiàn)公司對(duì)科技世界的統(tǒng)治力正在下降。所以他決定反擊，投入巨大的精力爭(zhēng)奪社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)市場(chǎng)。佩奇成為谷歌CEO后的第一把火便是推出Google+，加大財(cái)力和工程力量的投入，對(duì)Facebook的領(lǐng)地展開攻勢(shì)。其實(shí)Google+并非谷歌在社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)進(jìn)行的首次嘗試，但卻是谷歌第一款沒有遭到業(yè)界嘲弄的社交產(chǎn)品。谷歌稱，僅僅四個(gè)月內(nèi)，Google +的注冊(cè)用戶便達(dá)到4,000萬人。而在另一方，扎克伯格也非常清楚，自從Facebook輕松超越MySpace成為全球最大的社交網(wǎng)站以來，Google+是Facebook遇到的第一個(gè)真正意義上的威脅。（對(duì)Facebook而言，這不僅僅是榮譽(yù)之爭(zhēng)：如果公司的光環(huán)受到威脅，將會(huì)影響其期待已久的首次公開招股。預(yù)計(jì)公司IPO規(guī)模將超過800億美元。）于是，在Google+發(fā)布后不久，扎克伯格便在總部緊急掛出粉紅色霓虹燈信號(hào)，上面寫著“戒備狀態(tài)”，目的是要提醒員工需要不分晝夜，加班加點(diǎn)，借鑒Google+中最受歡迎的部分功能。 但防守并非扎克伯格的風(fēng)格。今年9月，在公司的F8開發(fā)者大會(huì)上，他推出了海量的新功能，旨在從根本上提高目前的服務(wù)水平。而且，預(yù)計(jì)公司最終將會(huì)推出一個(gè)廣告網(wǎng)絡(luò)，管理所有社交行為，幫助廣告商在網(wǎng)絡(luò)中更有效地鎖定目標(biāo)客戶。如果這一策略得到完美執(zhí)行，將會(huì)進(jìn)一步威脅谷歌在在線廣告領(lǐng)域中的霸主地位。 所以，當(dāng)大多數(shù)用戶輕松游走于Gmail賬戶和在Facebook訂閱的新聞資訊之間時(shí)，在舊金山半島的核心地段，正在進(jìn)行一場(chǎng)激烈的戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)。今年夏天，扎克伯格為愿意在周末加班的員工提供免費(fèi)食物。而佩奇則催促他的團(tuán)隊(duì)以近乎瘋狂的速度為Google+添加新功能：在前90天內(nèi)推出了100個(gè)新功能。他們現(xiàn)在的決定，包括產(chǎn)品發(fā)布、廣告推廣等，將會(huì)決定最終的勝者。 谷歌 拉里?佩奇很不高興。當(dāng)時(shí)是去年春天的一個(gè)周末，38歲的佩奇正在安卓（Android）手機(jī)上試用Google+的早期樣品。他發(fā)現(xiàn)把拍攝的照片發(fā)布到Google+中的程序過于繁瑣。于是他打電話向谷歌社交業(yè)務(wù)負(fù)責(zé)人維克?剛鐸抱怨。剛鐸向他解釋了Google+團(tuán)隊(duì)為什么要采取那種方法，試圖說服他。但佩奇堅(jiān)持認(rèn)為，照片應(yīng)該一鍵上傳。在谷歌，佩奇的要求都會(huì)得到滿足。于是，剛鐸命令團(tuán)隊(duì)重新設(shè)計(jì)照片上傳功能，現(xiàn)在，佩奇對(duì)這項(xiàng)技術(shù)贊不絕口。近期，他向外界描述通過安卓系統(tǒng)向Google+發(fā)布照片是多么簡(jiǎn)單：“這絕對(duì)是神奇的體驗(yàn)?！?/p> | This shift to a more social web changes everything for businesses and consumers alike. Among the first industries to be rocked: advertising. Google may capture 41% of today's $31 billion U.S. online advertising market, including the lion's share of the search-ad market. But growth in search advertising is slowing, and advertisers are putting more of their limited dollars into Facebook, with its 800 million users, many of whom spend more time on Facebook than on any other site. (See chart at the bottom of the page) Facebook's display-ad revenue is expected to grow 81% this year, while Google's display-ad dollars will rise an estimated 34%. Google and Facebook would have you believe there is room for each to drive forward with unlimited success, but don't be fooled. As Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan explains, "It's highly unlikely that either Google or Facebook could grow by the billions that investors expect in the display market without engaging directly and stealing market share from the other." Like Bill Gates a decade or so earlier, Page is seeing his company's grip on the tech world loosening. So he's fighting back with a mammoth effort to grab a piece of the social web. His first substantial act as Google's new CEO was to amp up the considerable financial and engineering mojo the company had aimed at Facebook's turf by releasing Google+. It's not Google's first social initiative, but it's the one that folks aren't laughing at, and Google says 40 million people have signed up in only four months. Across town Zuckerberg knows Google+ is the first credible threat Facebook has faced since it sailed past MySpace to become the world's No. 1 social network. (For Facebook there are more than bragging rights at stake: Anything that tarnishes its halo could impact its long-awaited initial public offering with a valuation that is expected to top $80 billion.) Not surprisingly, shortly after Google+ made its debut, Zuckerberg flipped on a pink neon sign at headquarters with the word lockdown, signaling that employees were on notice to work around the clock on, among other things, replicating some of the most praised Google+ features. But defensive moves are not Zuckerberg's style, and in September, at the company's F8 developers event, he unleashed a sea of new features that alter the current service radically. And it's expected the company will launch an ad network eventually that will harness all those social actions to help advertisers target consumers better across the web. Smartly deployed, it could further threaten Google's position as the king of online advertising. So while most of us spend our days casually toggling back and forth between our Gmail accounts and our Facebook newsfeeds, down in the heart of the San Francisco Peninsula it's war. Zuckerberg served free food this summer to willing workers on the weekends. Page is pushing his team to add features to Google+ at a furious pace: more than 100 in the first 90 days. The decisions that are being made right now -- product launches, advertising plays -- will determine which company prevails. Larry Page was not pleased. It was a weekend day last spring, and Page, 38, was playing around with an early prototype of Google+ on his Android phone. He found it too cumbersome to post photos he had just taken. He called Vic Gundotra, Google's social czar, to complain. Gundotra tried to push back, explaining why the Google+ team decided on the approach it had taken. Page insisted that photos be uploaded with one click. At Google, what Page asks for, he gets. Gundotra ordered his team to rebuild the photo-uploading feature, and Page now gushes about the technology. "It is a totally magical experience," he said recently, as he described how easy it is to post photos from Android to Google+. |
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保羅?亞當(dāng)斯在硅谷炙手可熱。他是一位才華橫溢的產(chǎn)品設(shè)計(jì)師，戴著方框眼鏡，說話帶有濃重的愛爾蘭口音，瘋狂崇拜激情四溢的技術(shù)狂人。作為谷歌（Google）頂尖的社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)研究員，谷歌新社交網(wǎng)站Google+背后的理念很大程度上便出自他的創(chuàng)意：Google+中靈活的“圈子”功能使用戶可以輕松把好友分成“摯友”或“大學(xué)哥們”。但他并未能在谷歌將自己的理念推向消費(fèi)者。在去年12月的一場(chǎng)天才爭(zhēng)奪戰(zhàn)中，他選擇加盟位于帕洛阿爾托以東10英里的Facebook，幫助其設(shè)計(jì)社交廣告。對(duì)此，亞當(dāng)斯在博客中解釋道：“谷歌重視的是技術(shù)，而不是社交?！?/p> 科技公司之間相互競(jìng)爭(zhēng)的情況由來已久，但很少有像谷歌與Facebook這兩個(gè)網(wǎng)絡(luò)豪強(qiáng)之間的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)如此激烈和殘酷。為了爭(zhēng)取像亞當(dāng)斯這樣的人才，吸引用戶眼球，爭(zhēng)奪廣告收入，它們會(huì)不惜一切代價(jià)。雖然兩家公司并未像甲骨文（Oracle）與惠普（HP）般公開詆毀挑釁，也沒有如微軟（Microsoft）與網(wǎng)景（Netscape）般明刀明槍地交火，但雙方都為競(jìng)爭(zhēng)投入了巨大的籌碼。兩家公司都希望成為未來網(wǎng)絡(luò)的主宰——而最終的結(jié)果將會(huì)影響我們獲取信息、溝通以及進(jìn)行交易的方式。 Facebook與谷歌：王者之爭(zhēng) 交戰(zhàn)一方Facebook是社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)中的“王者”，希望鞏固自己的地位，掌握所有人的網(wǎng)絡(luò)生活。而另一方谷歌則控制著全球的海量信息，引領(lǐng)人們的搜索方式，它希望在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)從超鏈接時(shí)代向以人為本轉(zhuǎn)變的過程中保持自己的統(tǒng)治地位。 谷歌聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人兼CEO拉里?佩奇（4月份上任）僅比Facebook的馬克?扎克伯格年長(zhǎng)11歲，但他們卻屬于不同的網(wǎng)絡(luò)一代，并且擁有截然不同的世界觀。在佩奇的世界里，一切均從搜索開始。用戶通過搜索來查看新聞，查找鐘愛的鞋子，追蹤最喜愛的名人動(dòng)態(tài)。如果需要了解醫(yī)院的醫(yī)療條件或決定需要購(gòu)買的電視型號(hào)，用戶首先要進(jìn)行搜索。而且在這一領(lǐng)域，谷歌的程序經(jīng)過十多年的改進(jìn)已經(jīng)如魚得水。但近幾年，網(wǎng)絡(luò)世界卻在逐漸向扎克伯格的世界傾斜，這種變革甚至堪稱殘酷。在扎克伯格的世界里，我們不再通過搜索獲得新聞，而是等著朋友來告訴我們新鮮資訊，告訴我們他們喜歡的電影，鐘愛的品牌，甚至去那里吃美味的壽司。 現(xiàn)在，F(xiàn)acebook已經(jīng)成為新互聯(lián)網(wǎng)世界的核心，很多人一天的在線生活也是從這里開始。而Facebook成功的秘訣在于讓公司在網(wǎng)絡(luò)中傳播，并允許他人分享用戶的朋友圈子。結(jié)果，成千上萬個(gè)網(wǎng)站和應(yīng)用像衛(wèi)星一樣，圍繞著Facebook運(yùn)行。我們可以打開點(diǎn)評(píng)網(wǎng)站Yelp查看好友如何評(píng)價(jià)街邊新開的咖啡廳，到在線音樂服務(wù)網(wǎng)站Spotify，讓好友幫我們挑選音樂，或者與好友一起玩社交游戲公司Zynga開發(fā)的游戲。而對(duì)于佩奇來說，更糟糕的是谷歌的程序根本無法捕捉這些社交活動(dòng)，導(dǎo)致這種程序，甚至于谷歌搜索本身的精確性日益下降，進(jìn)而日益與人們的生活脫節(jié)。 | Paul Adams is one of Silicon Valley's most wanted. He's an intellectually minded product designer with square-framed glasses, a thick Irish accent, and a cult following of passionate techies. As one of Google's lead social researchers, he helped dream up the big idea behind the company's new social network, Google+: those flexible circles that let you group friends easily under monikers like "real friends" or "college buddies." He never got to help bring his concept to consumers, though. In a master talent grab last December, Facebook lured him 10 miles east to Palo Alto to help design social advertisements. On his blog, Adams explained, "Google values technology, not social science." In the long history of tech rivalries, rarely has there been a battle as competitive as the raging war between the web's wonder twins. They will stop at nothing to win over whip-smart folks like Adams, amass eyeballs, and land ad dollars. There's no public trash talking à la the Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500) vs. HP (HPQ, Fortune 500) smackdown, nor are the battle lines drawn as clearly as they were when Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) took on Netscape, but the stakes are immense. These companies are fighting to see which of them will determine the future of the web -- and the outcome will affect the way we get information, communicate, and buy and sell. Facebook and Google: Head-to-Head In one corner is Facebook, the reigning champion of the social web, trying to cement its position as the owner of everyone's online identity. In the other is Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), the company that organized the world's information and showed us how to find it, fighting to remain relevant as the Internet of hyperlinks gives way to an Internet of people. Although Larry Page, Google's co-founder and its CEO since April, was born just 11 years before Mark Zuckerberg, his counterpart at Facebook, the two belong to different Internet generations with different worldviews. In Page's web, everything starts with a search. You search for news or for a pair of shoes or to keep up with your favorite celebrity. If you want to learn about a medical condition or decide which television to buy, you search. In that world, Google's algorithms, honed over more than a decade, respond almost perfectly. But in recent years the web has tilted gradually, and perhaps inexorably, toward Zuckerberg's world. There, rather than search for a news article, you wait for your friends to tell you what to read. They tell you what movies they enjoyed, what brands they like, and where to eat sushi. Facebook is squarely at the center of this new universe, and much of what people do online these days starts there. But Facebook's masterstroke has been to spread itself across the web and allow others to tap your network of friends. As a result, thousands of websites and apps have essentially become satellites that orbit around Facebook. You can now go to Yelp to find out what your Facebook friends say about the new coffeehouse down the street, visit Spotify to let them pick music playlists for you, or play Zynga games with them. To make matters worse for Page, much of this social activity can't be seen by Google's web-trolling algorithms, so every day they (and by extension, Google) become a little bit less accurate and relevant. |
Facebook嚴(yán)陣以待 直到最近，Google+上最受歡迎的人還是馬克?扎克伯格，他已經(jīng)擁有598,000名粉絲，而且數(shù)字還在增長(zhǎng)。但到目前為止，他并未發(fā)布任何公共信息，而且他根本就不希望討論Google+。在7月份的一次活動(dòng)上，當(dāng)被追問關(guān)于Google+的看法時(shí)，他認(rèn)為“Google+只是進(jìn)一步驗(yàn)證了未來5年網(wǎng)絡(luò)的發(fā)展趨勢(shì)”。（言下之意似乎是：他們只是在抄襲我們而已。) 但在今年夏季的封閉研發(fā)期間，位于帕洛阿爾托市的Facebook總部?jī)?nèi)氣氛緊張。超過750名工程師加班加點(diǎn)，他們忙碌的身影經(jīng)常在扎克伯格坐鎮(zhèn)的小型玻璃會(huì)議室外往來穿梭；而近年來，這種情形在Facebook僅出現(xiàn)過一次。當(dāng)時(shí)是2010年夏天，外界盛傳谷歌正在開發(fā)“Facebook殺手”，于是扎克伯格要求工程師們加班加點(diǎn)工作60天，優(yōu)化網(wǎng)站的關(guān)鍵社交功能，如照片、群組和活動(dòng)等。而與當(dāng)時(shí)一樣，今年夏天，F(xiàn)acebook的餐廳在晚上和周末對(duì)員工開放，員工的孩子可以到這里用餐，然后與父母道晚安——因?yàn)樗麄兊母改高€要工作到很晚。到今年9月份，F(xiàn)acebook發(fā)布了一系列新功能，例如可以與Google+的圈子功能媲美的群組工具。Facebook產(chǎn)品與研發(fā)團(tuán)隊(duì)的一位成員就表示：“【谷歌】可能會(huì)在社交項(xiàng)目上投入巨額資金和海量人力。所以，F(xiàn)acebook的所有人都感覺：情況非常嚴(yán)重，我們應(yīng)該嚴(yán)肅對(duì)待?！?/p> 這種焦慮情緒不僅僅表現(xiàn)在推動(dòng)Facebook開發(fā)出更好的產(chǎn)品， Facebook甚至秘密聘請(qǐng)博雅公關(guān)公司（Burson-Marsteller）在報(bào)紙和博客上發(fā)表了一系列批評(píng)谷歌的文章，但這樣拙劣的舉措結(jié)果卻適得其反，因?yàn)槊襟w很快就發(fā)現(xiàn)Facebook是博雅公關(guān)的客戶。雖然Facebook聲稱此舉是出于公司對(duì)谷歌違反隱私政策行為的擔(dān)憂，但它卻因?yàn)樽约涸愀獾呐袛嗔β氏瘸蔀楸娛钢摹?/p> 但具有諷刺意義的是，F(xiàn)acebook和谷歌一方面都希望盡可能為各自的廣告商挖掘盡可能多的用戶個(gè)人信息，但同時(shí)雙方又一直在“保護(hù)用戶隱私”方面苦苦掙扎。我們可能對(duì)Zappos網(wǎng)站上的一雙鞋發(fā)表了評(píng)論，或是在狀態(tài)欄里更新了未來婚禮計(jì)劃的信息。而Facebook卻能根據(jù)這些信息將我們引導(dǎo)至可能需要的商品廣告上， 于是許多大公司紛紛將Facebook平臺(tái)作為在網(wǎng)絡(luò)上進(jìn)行大規(guī)模品牌宣傳活動(dòng)的首選。因此，雖然Facebook目前的廣告收入遠(yuǎn)比不上谷歌，但其增長(zhǎng)速度卻快得多。據(jù)美國(guó)市場(chǎng)研究公司eMarketer預(yù)計(jì)，今年Facebook的廣告收入將飆升至43億美元，較去年的20億美元增長(zhǎng)一倍多。而相比而言，分析師預(yù)測(cè)谷歌今年廣告收入的增長(zhǎng)幅度僅為30%，約為380億美元。 如何讓更多用戶在Facebook上消磨更多時(shí)間，與Facebook好友分享更多信息，進(jìn)而積累更多數(shù)據(jù)？目前，扎克伯格正被這一問題所困擾。在今年9月舉行的F8大會(huì)上，他發(fā)布了一項(xiàng)被稱為“時(shí)間線”的功能，用來取代Facebook逐漸落伍的個(gè)人資料頁面。扎克伯格對(duì)這一功能的解釋是：“想象一下，這就像是你正在講述自己的人生經(jīng)歷一樣?！睘榱饲宄匮菔具@一功能，他以自己的Facebook時(shí)間線為例作為說明。這是一個(gè)垂直的時(shí)間軸，追溯了他的人生經(jīng)歷，其中按順序列出了他在網(wǎng)站上發(fā)布的所有帖子，通過這些帖子，他一生中所有最重要的時(shí)刻一目了然；同時(shí)，這一功能促使他發(fā)布了大量的帖子和照片來追溯人生，一直回溯到1984年5月14日。帖子寫到：出生于多布斯費(fèi)里，紐約。實(shí)際上，扎克伯格計(jì)劃引導(dǎo)用戶將Facebook變成個(gè)人生活的數(shù)字剪貼本。我們不妨設(shè)想一下，假如用戶要補(bǔ)上個(gè)人在Facebook誕生之前數(shù)十年間的生活片段，他們將要花多少時(shí)間上傳照片，整理活動(dòng)記錄。 | Until recently, the most popular person on Google+, with 598,000 followers and counting, was Mark Zuckerberg. But he has yet to make a public post, and indeed he'd prefer not to discuss Google+ at all. When pressed at a July event, he called it only a "validation as to how the next five years are going to play out." (Translation: Uh, they're copying us.) However, inside the Palo Alto office where more than 750 engineers regularly pass by the small glass conference room in which Zuckerberg, 27, holds court, Facebook employees put in some serious overtime during the summer lockdown. This had happened only once before in recent years at Facebook: After word leaked that Google was starting work on a "Facebook killer" in summer 2010, Zuckerberg called on engineers to work nights and weekends for 60 days to revamp key social features like photos, groups, and events. Just as it did then, the cafeteria opened up on evenings and weekends this summer, and children dropped in for dinners and good-night hugs before their parents logged back on for late nights. By September, Facebook had released a slew of new features like better grouping tools to mirror those Google+ circles. Says one member of the product and engineering team: "[Google] can throw all the money in the world, including hundreds of people, at this. So people were, like, This is serious, and we should take it seriously." That anxiety wasn't simply channeled into building a better product. In May, Facebook secretly hired public relations firm Burson-Marsteller to plant anti-Google stories in papers and blogs, a ham-fisted move that backfired when journalists discovered Facebook was Burson's client. The company defended its concerns about Google's privacy violations but took the flak for bad judgment. The irony, of course, is that Facebook and Google both are in a constant struggle to respect users' privacy while mining as much personal information as possible for the companies' advertisers. All that social information we plug into Facebook when we "like" a pair of shoes on Zappos or update our status about future wedding plans helps the company serve us up ads for things we're more likely to want. This has made Facebook into the go-to advertising platform for big marketers hoping to do brand advertising at scale on the web. As a result, even though Facebook's revenue is minuscule compared with Google's, it is growing at a much faster rate. It is expected to surge to $4.3 billion this year, or more than double the $2 billion it had last year, according to eMarketer. In contrast, analysts predict that Google's revenue will grow just 30%, to $38 billion. Zuckerberg is obsessed with figuring out how to amass more data by getting more people to spend more time sharing more things with their Facebook friends. At the F8 event in September, he unveiled something called a timeline to replace Facebook's aging profile pages. "Imagine expressing the story of your life," Zuckerberg explained. To demonstrate, he popped up his own Facebook timeline, where a vertical line scrolled backward through his personal history, curating all the posts he'd ever made on the site to bring to the surface the most important items and encouraging him to add posts and photos going all the way back to the May 14, 1984, post: Born, Dobbs Ferry, New York. In effect, Zuckerberg plans to coax us into making Facebook our living digital scrapbooks. Imagine the hours users may log uploading photos and labeling events from the lost decades B.F. (Before Facebook). |
但Facebook在F8會(huì)議上最大膽的舉措并不是上述功能更新，而是在社交層面進(jìn)一步與Netflix和Spotify等其他服務(wù)進(jìn)行整合?，F(xiàn)在，如果用戶希望注冊(cè)Spotify，就必須提供他們的Facebook賬戶信息。而這一點(diǎn)對(duì)用戶來說，有利的一面是可以在Spotify或Facebook上直接找到和收聽朋友的播放列表，而不利的一面則是自己的音樂偏好將被公之于眾（例如，肖恩?帕克正在收聽Florence + the Machine樂隊(duì)的音樂）。而隨著時(shí)間的推移，這類新的數(shù)據(jù)可能蘊(yùn)藏著巨大的商業(yè)價(jià)值。雖然現(xiàn)在許多網(wǎng)絡(luò)出版商允許用戶選擇是否在Facebook上公開自己的動(dòng)態(tài)，比如他們讀過的文章，或他們購(gòu)買的鞋子等，但多數(shù)用戶都會(huì)跳過這一步。而在新的模式下，共享成為了一種選擇性退出，而不是選擇性進(jìn)入。由此，F(xiàn)acebook可以突然之間獲得大量的用戶在線行為信息，并最終利用這些數(shù)據(jù)來出售更有針對(duì)性的線上和線下廣告。 如果說谷歌AdWords和AdSense廣告平臺(tái)是目前幫助廣告客戶找到大量有采購(gòu)目標(biāo)的受眾，那么社交廣告的用途則是用來幫助人們發(fā)現(xiàn)新的事物。 戰(zhàn)火硝煙四起 10月末的一天，科技博客界因?yàn)樯缃痪W(wǎng)絡(luò)領(lǐng)域的一則新聞而沸沸揚(yáng)揚(yáng)：扎克伯格不再是Google+上擁有粉絲最多的用戶。是誰取代了他呢？這個(gè)人正是佩奇。雖然看起來這不足為奇，但不難想象谷歌總部肯定為此竊喜不已。無論是谷歌還是Facebook都不愿談?wù)撾p方之間的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)（因此他們也不愿意CEO們就本文置評(píng)），但實(shí)際上，雙方已經(jīng)在很多方面展開較量，哪怕是一次小小的勝利都會(huì)讓他們彈冠相慶。 兩家公司對(duì)人才的爭(zhēng)奪或許是衡量?jī)烧吒?jìng)爭(zhēng)最直觀的指標(biāo)，雙方工程師或者高管跳槽到對(duì)方的情況很容易統(tǒng)計(jì)。而這方面的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)呈一邊倒的趨勢(shì)。Facebook內(nèi)部從高管到底層實(shí)習(xí)生，來自谷歌的人比比皆是，其中就包括谷歌原社交項(xiàng)目研究員亞當(dāng)斯。在Facebook的11位高管中，有4位來自谷歌，包括現(xiàn)任COO謝麗爾?桑德伯格以及負(fù)責(zé)廣告和運(yùn)營(yíng)業(yè)務(wù)的大衛(wèi)?菲舍爾。 但這些數(shù)據(jù)只不過是雙方競(jìng)爭(zhēng)的縮影。早在2007年，雙方的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)便已拉開序幕，隨后便愈演愈烈。Facebook有什么致命武器？它是硅谷最炙手可熱的公司，同時(shí)在未來上市后可以創(chuàng)造大批百萬富翁，這些是它吸引人才的王牌。而谷歌則投入巨額資金予以還擊。一位曾親身經(jīng)歷雙方人才爭(zhēng)奪戰(zhàn)的高管表示，谷歌甚至許諾，如果頂尖的工程師或高管留守公司，他們將可獲得超過價(jià)值1,000萬美元的股票和現(xiàn)金。很快，這些消息不脛而走，許多谷歌員工理所當(dāng)然會(huì)采取行動(dòng)：他們先拿到Facebook 的入職通知，然后轉(zhuǎn)過頭來以此要求谷歌大幅加薪。近期從谷歌跳槽的一位高管說：“這種情況就造成了一種‘非谷歌式’的環(huán)境。人們開始‘良禽擇木而棲’?！庇谑窃诮衲?月，谷歌推出了不同的措施，給所有員工全部加薪10%，并且將大部分員工的獎(jiǎng)金計(jì)入基礎(chǔ)工資。由此，許多谷歌員工的薪金增加了15%，甚至20%。 如果說在人才爭(zhēng)奪戰(zhàn)中，谷歌處于守勢(shì)，在吸引用戶眼球方面它則是攻勢(shì)如潮，其最有力的武器是在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)領(lǐng)域的主導(dǎo)地位。例如，經(jīng)過90天的試運(yùn)行后，今年9月份，Google+完全向用戶開放，而谷歌為此采取的推廣措施連一些大公司都艷羨不已：谷歌在其主頁上放置了一個(gè)大大的藍(lán)色箭頭，將數(shù)千萬用戶引導(dǎo)至Google+圖標(biāo)，使Google+的流量迅猛上升。除主頁外，谷歌還計(jì)劃在Gmail、谷歌地圖以及YouTube等服務(wù)的龐大用戶群中不分晝夜地推廣Google+，并將Google+服務(wù)整合到數(shù)百萬臺(tái)Android手機(jī)中。Twitter首席執(zhí)行官迪克?科斯托羅也表示：“毋庸置疑，Google+肯定會(huì)吸引到大量用戶?！?/p> Facebook最擔(dān)心的自然便是谷歌吸引用戶的能力。盡管Facebook的高管多年以來一直表示，他們有信心在公平競(jìng)爭(zhēng)環(huán)境中擊敗谷歌，但他們也擔(dān)心微軟之前的一幕將會(huì)重演，即谷歌并不會(huì)與Facebook公平競(jìng)爭(zhēng)，而是會(huì)利用其在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)領(lǐng)域的主導(dǎo)地位來推廣Google+。而且在谷歌網(wǎng)站上推廣Google+不僅非常有效，而且也無可非議。但如果谷歌利用其搜索引擎來力推Google+并打壓其他社交網(wǎng)站服務(wù)，則可能產(chǎn)生爭(zhēng)議。雖然谷歌還未采取這種措施來推廣Google+，但它之前在推廣谷歌地圖等其他服務(wù)時(shí)便曾這樣做過，導(dǎo)致競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手大呼不平。如果谷歌今后希望采取這種措施，必須三思而行，因?yàn)楣疽呀?jīng)在接受政府的反壟斷調(diào)查。而在移動(dòng)領(lǐng)域，谷歌可能在Android手機(jī)和平板電腦上內(nèi)置多個(gè)Google+功能，進(jìn)而增加對(duì)手的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)難度。 | But the boldest move at F8 was not Zuckerberg's flashy redesign but rather deeper social integration with other services like Netflix (NFLX) and Spotify. To register for Spotify, newcomers must now use their Facebook credentials. The upside is that you can find and listen to your friends' playlists on Spotify or on Facebook directly. The downside is your musical tastes are revealed to the world (i.e., Sean Parker is listening to Florence + the Machine). This new stream of social data could prove invaluable over time. Until now, although many web publishers offered users the option to publish their actions -- articles they read, shoes they buy -- on Facebook, most people took a pass. In the new model, sharing becomes opt-out rather than opt-in, and Facebook could become the sudden recipient of a good deal more information about what we do online. Eventually, the company could use the data to sell even more targeted ads both on and off the site. If Google's AdWords and AdSense are the de facto tools for helping advertisers reach large numbers of people who know what they're looking for, social ads will be the tool for helping people discover new things. The war One day in late October, tech blogs started buzzing about the latest bit of news on the social web: Zuckerberg had lost his place as the most followed Google+ user. Who edged him out? None other than Larry Page. Trivial, perhaps, but it's hard not to think that the news lit up smiles across the Googleplex. Neither Google nor Facebook likes to talk about competing with each other (and neither company would make their CEOs available for this story), but battles are raging on multiple fronts, and both sides celebrate even the smallest victory. Nowhere is keeping score easier than in the battle for talent, where every engineer or executive who defects from one company or the other is easily tabulated. On that front the battle has been a lopsided affair. Look through the ranks of Facebook, from upper management to lowly interns, and you'll bump into ex-Googlers like Adams, the social researcher, at every turn. Four of Facebook's 11 top executives hail from Google, including COO Sheryl Sandberg and David Fischer, the advertising and operations chief. These numbers, however, don't tell the full story of a battle that began as far back as 2007 and has only intensified since. Facebook's weapons of choice? Its cachet as the hottest Valley company -- and its potential to mint millionaires when it finally goes public. Google has fought back with money, lots of it. In some cases Google offered top engineers or execs more than $10 million in equity and cash if they stayed, said an executive directly involved in the talent wars. Word spread quickly, and many Googlers did what rational people would do: They got an offer from Facebook just so they could get a big raise at Google. "It created an un-Googley environment," says a senior manager who left Google recently. "They like to be merit-based." So in January, Google tried a different approach: It lavished a giant 10% raise on its entire workforce. It also shifted a large chunk of employee bonuses into base pay. As a result, many people saw their paychecks increase by 15% or even 20%. But if Google is playing defense on the talent war, it is clearly playing offense in the battle for eyeballs. Its most powerful weapon is its status as the dominant Internet company. In September, for example, when it opened up Google+ to everyone, following a 90-day trial period, it unleashed the kind of promotion that even the biggest brands would envy: A large blue arrow on its homepage pointed the tens of millions who visit it daily to a Google+ tab. Traffic on the site spiked immediately. In addition to Google.com, Google plans to promote Google+, day in and day out, to the hundreds of millions of people who use services like Gmail, Maps, and YouTube; and to weave it into millions of Android handsets. Says Dick Costolo, the chief executive of Twitter: "There is no doubt they are going to be able to pull in massive numbers of users." Naturally, it's Google's power to pull in those users that worries Facebook the most. For years executives there have said that they are confident they can beat Google on a level playing field. But they fear that, like Microsoft in an earlier era, Google will use its power to peddle Google+, and not always fairly. Some tactics, like promotions on Google.com, are effective and uncontroversial. Others, like Google's ability to use its search engine to promote Google+ ahead of other social services, could prove more problematic. Google has not yet done so with Google+, but it has done just that with other services, like its maps, prompting rivals to cry foul. Google may think twice before engaging in such tactics, as it is already under a government antitrust investigation. Yet with mobile as the next battleground, Google may also find ways to build many Google+ features right into Android phones and tablets, making it harder for rivals to compete. |
扎克伯格注意到了谷歌在移動(dòng)領(lǐng)域的優(yōu)勢(shì)，因此轉(zhuǎn)向谷歌在移動(dòng)領(lǐng)域最大的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手——蘋果公司（Apple），開始加強(qiáng)雙方的關(guān)系。據(jù)知情人士透露，F(xiàn)acebook與蘋果已經(jīng)進(jìn)行了數(shù)輪磋商?；蛟S是因?yàn)閮杉夜驹?jīng)的過節(jié)，目前雙方尚未找到可行的合作方式。去年蘋果曾試圖將圍繞iTunes建立的社交網(wǎng)站Ping與Facebook互聯(lián)，但卻被Facebook以所謂技術(shù)問題予以回絕。蘋果公司很少會(huì)公開指責(zé)其他公司的行為，但此次史蒂夫?喬布斯甚至親自召集媒體，表達(dá)了他的不滿。此外，蘋果在其最新版本的移動(dòng)操作系統(tǒng)上選擇了與Twitter合作，而不是Facebook，這也對(duì)雙方的合作商談產(chǎn)生不利影響。不過雙方的磋商仍在繼續(xù)，因?yàn)樗麄兌记宄?，結(jié)盟有助于對(duì)付共同的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手谷歌。 也許你會(huì)問：假如這是一場(chǎng)戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)，那么誰將是最終的贏家？這個(gè)問題非常復(fù)雜。谷歌的社交媒體業(yè)務(wù)有兩個(gè)目標(biāo)：一方面是遏制Facebook 的發(fā)展勢(shì)頭；另一方面則是利用Google+收集的數(shù)據(jù)來改善谷歌的搜索、地圖服務(wù)和廣告等業(yè)務(wù)。剛鐸與佩奇都表示，后一個(gè)目標(biāo)更為重要。剛鐸稱：“根據(jù)這個(gè)目標(biāo)，我們可以進(jìn)一步改善搜索體驗(yàn)，提高YouTube與Gmail的性能，并使廣告更具相關(guān)性。Google+將幫助改善公司的所有業(yè)務(wù)。” 為了實(shí)現(xiàn)這個(gè)目標(biāo)，谷歌并不需要打敗Facebook，但它必須坐上社交領(lǐng)域名副其實(shí)的第二把交椅。如果說把谷歌與Facebook的關(guān)系比作赫茲租車公司（Hertz，全球最大的租車公司——譯注）與安飛士汽車租賃公司(Avis，全球第二大租車公司——譯注)，或許很離譜。搜索引擎技術(shù)網(wǎng)站Search Engine Land的編輯丹尼?蘇利文稱：“就目前的形勢(shì)來看，谷歌更像是富田租車公司（Thrifty Car Rental）。”要爬到第二位，谷歌需要在社交領(lǐng)域加大投入。例如，今年10月，一家科技博客網(wǎng)站報(bào)道稱，包括執(zhí)行董事長(zhǎng)埃里克?施密特在內(nèi)的多位谷歌高管自己都還沒有開通Google+賬戶。幾天后，施密特的賬戶便悄然出現(xiàn)在Google+上。此外，谷歌還需要其他推動(dòng)力，那就是提供不同于Facebook的價(jià)值定位，說服大量用戶轉(zhuǎn)投其陣營(yíng)，或至少是同時(shí)成為這兩家社交網(wǎng)站的活躍用戶。目前，我們還無法知曉在Google+的4,000萬賬戶中，有多少用戶在實(shí)際使用該網(wǎng)站。谷歌自然不會(huì)透露這一數(shù)據(jù)。當(dāng)被問及用戶為什么應(yīng)轉(zhuǎn)投Google+時(shí)，谷歌高管一再表示，傳統(tǒng)的在線共享功能已被顛覆（這話還是去跟Facebook的8億用戶說吧），而通過圈子功能，Google+用戶可以分享他們?cè)谡鎸?shí)世界的任何活動(dòng)（但Facebook現(xiàn)在也具備了這項(xiàng)功能）。 對(duì)于Facebook來說，Google+上線伊始的成功意味著一旦扎克伯格出現(xiàn)失誤，后果將難以承受。過去Facebook經(jīng)常出現(xiàn)產(chǎn)品失策和用戶隱私泄露的問題，但基本都得到了外界的諒解，或者不了了之，公司并未遭到過多責(zé)難。從現(xiàn)在起，如果Facebook惹惱用戶，Google+將很樂意接收他們，當(dāng)然，他們的朋友也自不必說。因此，扎克伯格現(xiàn)在在繼續(xù)前進(jìn)的同時(shí)，還必須密切關(guān)注佩奇和谷歌的動(dòng)向。扎克伯格也許可以對(duì)Facebook在用戶總數(shù)上的領(lǐng)先感到欣慰，對(duì)成功挖到數(shù)十位谷歌高端人才竊喜不已，但佩奇在補(bǔ)充谷歌人員儲(chǔ)備方面根本沒有什么難度。在最近的這個(gè)季度，谷歌新增近2,600名員工，幾乎相當(dāng)于Facebook的員工總數(shù)。而新招募的員工肩負(fù)著一個(gè)明確的使命：將谷歌打造成為社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)世界的超級(jí)巨頭。 譯者：阿龍/汪皓 | That last point is not lost on Zuckerberg. It has prompted him to seek closer ties with Google's biggest rival in mobile: Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500). The two companies have held multiple rounds of discussions, according to people with knowledge of the talks. But they have yet to find a compelling way to collaborate, perhaps because their courtship got off to a rocky start. Last year Facebook rebuffed Apple's attempt to connect Ping, a new social network built around iTunes, with Facebook, purportedly for technical reasons. It was a rare public rebuke for Apple, and Steve Jobs personally called some reporters to voice his displeasure. That Apple chose to bake Twitter, not Facebook, into the most recent version of its mobile operating system has not helped. Still, the two companies continue to talk, knowing full well that an alliance could help them fend off a common enemy. We know what you're probably thinking: If this is a war, who's going to win? The answer is not straightforward. Google has two goals with social media: One is to slow the momentum of Facebook; the other is to use data from Google+ to improve things like search, maps, and ads. Both Gundotra and Page say the latter goal is the more important one. "We can make search better," Gundotra says. "We can make YouTube and Gmail better. We can make our ads more relevant." He later adds: "Google+ will touch every aspect of Google." To meet its goals, Google doesn't need to best Facebook, but it needs to become a credible No. 2. Think Avis to Facebook's Hertz. That's a ways off. "At this point, it's more like Thrifty Car Rental," says Danny Sullivan, the editor of Search Engine Land. To get there, Google needs to drink even more of the social Kool-Aid than it has. Consider this: In October a tech blog reported that several top Google officials, including Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman, had not even set up their own accounts on Google+. A few days later Schmidt's account quietly appeared on the site. Google also needs something else: a value proposition that is different from Facebook's and that compels users to switch in large numbers -- or at least to be active on both sites. At this point, it is not clear how many of the 40 million people with Google+ accounts actually use the site. Google won't say. And when asked why anyone should switch to Google+, executives there say again and again that online sharing is broken (tell that to Facebook's 800 million members) and that with Circles, Google+ users can share as they do in the real world (never mind that Facebook has matched that capability). For Facebook, the early successes of Google+ mean Zuckerberg can no longer afford to screw up. In the past, Facebook's frequent product missteps and privacy snafus were by and large forgiven or forgotten. From now on, Google+ will stand at the ready, more than happy to welcome any disgruntled Facebook users -- not to mention their friends. In other words, as he soldiers on, Zuckerberg must now keep an eye on Page and his troops. Yes, Zuckerberg may feel good about Facebook's gaping lead in users and about having poached dozens of Google's prized brainiacs. But Page has had no problem replenishing Google's ranks. In the most recent quarter, Google added nearly 2,600 employees. That's almost as many people as work at Facebook, and they have a clear mandate: to turn Google into a superpower of the social web. |
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