As of August this year, Google controls 69% of the global search business.
Even with a foothold in the Smartphone market with the widely-popular Android mobile phone operating system, Google seem to have consistently failed to make a dramatic entrance on one other fundamental scene, despite making the effort to do so on several occasions.
So why is it that such a successful search engine is finding itself at a loss to compete with social networking giant Facebook?
It is important to distinguish what separates Facebook from Google’s previous attempts to conquer the social networking sphere in order to answer this question.
First, consider Google’s history of attempting to break into social networking.
The launch of Google Buzz was considerably dampened due to the lack of innovation that people expected from such a major company as Google, plus privacy issues were raised when Buzz alledgedly accessed personal user emails without consent.
Other attempts include Orkut and Google Friend Connect, which have consistently failed to even touch Facebook’s success – but in all fairness to Google, they have seen moderate success in the likes of India and Brazil.
Whilst these projects did offer users the opportunity to share videos, photos and updates in real time, and could even connect to other social networking sites like Twitter, they didn’t incorporate the fundamental aspect of Facebook that undeniably makes it the most powerful social networking site on the web.
FarmVille is played by 61 million users each day, and is just one of many social games available on the site. Considering Facebook has more than 500 million active users, and more than a tenth of these are logging on every day to play the likes of FarmVille, Pet Society or Texas HoldEm Poker, it is a wonder why Google hasn’t tapped into the social gaming market with their previous social networking sites.
In their quest to become the main go-to guy for all-things social, Google has invested in Slide, Jambool and Zynga: firms specialising in social networking and gaming services.
Rumoured to be entitled ‘Google Me’, the latest notch on Google’s social networking belt may just be the result of an innovative breakthrough that the company seem to have made: social gaming is the way forward.
Timing for this realisation couldn’t have been better, with the likes of Bebo recently buckling under the pressure when sites like Facebook and Twitter came to the fore. Maybe Google Me will prove to be the last attempt Google needs to make to dominate the social networking industry; the attempt that wipes Facebook off the map, just as Facebook did with MySpace.
After focussing primarily on connecting via traditional means with their other social networking projects, they seem to have finally hit the nail on the head with social gaming.
Only time will tell whether or not this is the first in many of Google’s breakthroughs for Google Me, or if Google Me will prove to be just another brash attempt on Google’s part to dominate the social networking scene.
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Posted by Kim.
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