Google v. Facebook: Following the Money

Also, given Googleâs recent launch of +1 â a half social, half traffic-generating web search feature â Facebook might be feeling even more pressure to make sure users are wary of the tool and less likely to use it without overthinking it. After all +1 is a Facebook Like competitor.

It’s more than just a battle over Facebook’s insane growth in display ad revenue — it is Google battle to maintain the sanctity of their core business: search. The social interactions that are happening around all kinds of URLs on Facebook is an incredibly rich trove of metadata from which Facebook could launch a very powerful web search engine.

I think it’s clear that Facebook has tons of growth ahead of it in both the ad market it’s growing now, and at least one other market they haven’t even entered yet: search.