It was only a matter of time: the world’s largest search engine, Google, announced its partnership Wednesday with the world’s largest social network, Facebook, to include Page updates in the search results. Now, the company that currently controls 90 percent of the search engine market will not only be able to pull in information related to 50 million tweets per day sent out on Twitter, they’ll also have semi-VIP access to the nearly three million fan Pages on Facebook.
Although Google first announced the Facebook-search inclusion in December—along with handful of other social networking platforms like Twitter, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku, and Identi.ca—we have yet to see results related to the Pages.
Many may mouth the word “monopoly,” but consider this: Microsoft’s Bing.com search engine has exclusive access to pull in content from Facebook’s 400 million users. Simply put, Google gets Facebook Page update access; Bing gets Facebook User update access. Who really has it better?
Do you really want every bit of content from Facebook’s 400 million users—borderline inappropriate photos, “LOLs,” and “♥s” included—pulled into your search engine? According to Facebook, “Pages are for organizations, businesses, celebrities, and bands to broadcast great information to fans in an official, public manner.” This is not to say every page maintains the described “official, professional” tone, but this is the standard.
Will Bing pull ahead in search engine market share with its unprecedented Facebook user access, or will this capability hurt them in the long run? Will Google’s search results seem inferior in comparison? You tell me. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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It will be interesting to see how this plays out for us at the Des Moines Register. We post a lot of updates to our Facebook pages. This could help drive more traffic to our site, or it might just drive traffic to Facebook that otherwise would have come directly to us.
Chris,
Yes, it will be interesting. In my mind, adding this social function to the world’s largest search engine will only up the ante for all organizations/businesses with a web presence. It’s about time! Thanks for your comment, great to hear your thoughts.
Abby