Two technological giants, Google and Facebook, are part of our daily lives whether we like
it or not.
For many Generation Z’s, it would be almost impossible to imagine day to day life without
both of these seemingly essential internet tools.
Both make our lives easier in many ways from connecting socially, to advertising, to conducting
business.
But which is the most successful to date, and who will last the longest as new technologies
break onto the market?
From simple search engines and social network tools to innovative artificial intelligence
and virtual reality platforms- which team has what it takes to lead us through to the
next wave of technical evolution?
That’s what we’ll find out, in this episode of the Infographics Show, Google vs Facebook.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin were both PHD students at Stanford University when they founded Google
in 1998 as a privately held company.
At that time, conventional search engines did not take into consideration the number
of times a page had been ‘hit’ by users, and instead listed websites that contained
the searched item word the most amount of times.
The pair developed the Page-rank system, whereby the pages that were most relevant and most
popular appeared first on any Google search.
The name Google came about as a misspelling of the word googol, which represents the number
1 followed by a 100 zeros.
The name was meant to represent the sheer volume of information held by a Google search
engine.
An initial public offering occurred in 2004, and Google moved to a new headquarters in
Mountain View, California.
Primarily a search engine, Google’s rapid growth since its inception has led to a number
of offshoot products including office tools such as email, document cloud services, sheets,
and slide presentation tools.
In addition, Google brought to the world Google maps and Google translation services, bringing
the world closer together in communications.
It has most recently partnered with electronic manufacturers producing smartphones, speakers,
and virtual reality headsets.
Facebook also began life at college.
Students Mark Zuckerberg and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz,
and Chris Hughes launched the social network service on the February 4th, 2004.
Facebook started out life with membership limited to fellow Harvard students before
expanding the network to include other colleges and universities and high school students.
Popularity grew, and by 2006, anyone over the age of 13 was permitted access to the
social network.
By February 2012, the company was valued at $10.4 billion, breaking the record for the
largest valuation for a newly listed public company.
The primary revenue generated through Facebook is through advertisements hosted on the site.
A move of HQ to Dublin in October 2008 meant that in the following year, Facebook announced
that it was making some real cash - owing no doubt to its new tax haven status.
In 2009, Facebook was ranked as the most active social network site in the world, with an
estimated 500 million users.
In 2010, Facebook was valued to the tune of $41 billion.
Facebook had moved by this time to the third largest internet company after Google and
eBay.
Facebook entered the Fortune 500 list at number 462 based on an income of $5 billion.
The Fortune 500 2017 list, meanwhile, puts Google’s parent company at number 22, while
Facebook moved to 76.
In the tech world, business acquisitions are rife, and Google’s parent company, Alphabet,
has snapped up Blogger, Youtube, Skybox, Maps, Wallet, Earth, and Hangouts.
On the other hand, Facebook has swallowed up Ozio, Wavegroup Sound, Oculus VR, Whatsapp,
Lightbox.com, and Instagram.
Alexa lists Google as the world’s most visited website.
And without a doubt, Google is one of the world’s most valuable brands, but it has
come under scrutiny owing to the alleged breaches of privacy experienced by its users.
Facebook also came under scrutiny for the ownership and exploitation of user’s personal
content.
Legal cases ensued against both sites, but both Google and Facebook have seemed to weather
the storm of litigation and controversy surrounding the sharing of their users personal content,
locations, buying habits, and search histories.
And speaking of searches, it is obvious that as a search engine, Google is king, but what
about as a social network tool?
Facebook wins for now as a social network platform, owing to its bigger user base, but
Google plus has its own advantages, including a slick interface and the ability to send
larger files with its cloud services and file sharing capability.
Google also has the benefit of sharing larger high resolution photographs which is important
for those working as media professionals.
Google keeps files safer, whereas Facebook’s messenger service seems to lose older information
which, for business purposes, is a major disadvantage.
Also, Facebook has those annoying advertisements, while Google cleverly commutes it's advertisements
via AdSense to other websites.
Part of Google’s success historically is the early decision to not place ads on its
search engine which set it apart from the likes of Yahoo and other search engines.
It has always maintained a clear user-friendly interface, but arguably so has Facebook.
As a business tool, it is fair to say that Google has the edge over Facebook, but as
a social media tool, Facebook is still the most widely used and therefore the hands down
winner- particularly in the Far Eastern territories.
As businesses, they have both succeeded tremendously, although Google was there first and has remained
stronger.
The truth is, most internet users use both Facebook and Google and see them as equally
valuable.
But how about looking into the future?
In 2016, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his plans for Facebook for the next 10 years.
In Facebook’s ideal world, everyone will be chatting with artificial computers, and
virtual reality goggles will be as commonplace as cell phones.
Picture a world where individuals sit at home wearing cyber glasses while connecting with
imaginary humans.
In a recent demonstration, Zuckerberg used an Oculus Rift headset with a 360-degree camera
to create a version of the real world inside virtual reality.
This brings to the technological arena a form of entertainment that the world has never
seen before.
The potential for VR as an educational tool is also very promising.
The trouble with VR though that techies have yet to be able to solve is it tends to make
people feel physically sick while using it.
In response, Google unveiled their plans for a Brave New World later in the same year.
While Facebook has yet to break into the search markets, Google is making inroads with their
social networking innovations; one of the key tools in Google’s kitbag is Youtube,
the undisputed champion of web video distribution.
Youtube also has a community who socially interact as those on Facebook.
With one eye on the virtual future, Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that the company
is employing artificial intelligence to “build a personal Google for each and every user.”
So the true winner in this Google vs Facebook battle could rest on who is first to tackle
and solve the problems surrounding current VR and AI models.
However, these visions are very forward thinking, as Artificial Intelligence is still in its
infancy, and Virtual Reality has a long way to go before becoming an everyday household
medium.
But one thing’s for sure: both Google and Facebook are stockpiling their engineering
talent and acquiring new companies in their efforts to make sure they walk away as victors
in these new technological fields.
In the meantime, the average internet user will remain, without a doubt, using the two
tech giants in tandem and looking forward to what both offer in
the future.
So, what do you think?
Is Facebook superior to Google?
Are they both equally useful?
What do you think the future for both Google and Facebook will be?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to watch our other video called – What is the Dark Web?!
Thanks for watching, and as always, don't forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time!