Indian Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

The topic has somehow become clichéd now. Or should I say overused? Which is going to outperform the other: Google or Facebook?

Facebook’s listing was pretty over-hyped as always the case with the market before a high profile company is listed. But soon, people become scared of over-valuation and eventual fall and the market corrects itself. I guess there are many out there, who are way overqualified than I am to talk about Investor Sentiment. There are gazillion research articles that try to understand and gauge how herd behavior works, why and how investors invest etc. Let me not tread that path as it is irrelevant to something more basic that I want to write here.

Few days back, I had this discussion with a friend of mine on the possible merits and demerits of Facebook and Google and which will outdo the other?

And in fact we had opposing viewpoints to the whole story. I must admit that we both are correct in the way we are looking at things.

And to be honest even this topic is over discussed globally. Google itself sees Facebook as eating large share of its pie and Facebook itself is struggling on a stable revenue model and outdoing Google.

The discussion we had was on Social Media. Whether Facebook’s Social Media platform is irreplaceable or whether Google Plus will eventually take over the Social Media world. I remember the days we had discussions on the topic of Facebook’s growth in our MBA subject Hi-Tech Strategy. The discussion was on the cost of moving from one social network to another. And given the huge network that a single user has on Facebook, it’s virtually impossible to move everyone to another Social Network.

So it is easy to say that Facebook will never be displaced. But here comes an interesting view point which my friend quite rightly pointed out. Google has naturally entered our lives in a way that we have never perceived. It has integrated into our lifestyle into virtually everything we do. Imagine a world, where there is no Google Search Engine, no Google maps and more recent no Android Phones! The whole web world will go tumbling down if that were to happen. Businesses would lose billions and people would not find a way to their destination comfortably and millions would not enjoy smartphones as Apple plays in the Exclusive segment.

After the Orkut debacle, Google has developed a very smart move which I am sure is sending sleepless scares to the strategists at Facebook. One does not need to create a separate profile and login details for Google Plus. If you are on Google, you are on Google Plus (I think by click of a button). So now everything you do on Google becomes a part of your profile on G+ (that can be used only by Google). And who does not use Gmail now?

So now we use the search engine and we use Gmail. Whoa! That’s all Google needs. G+ automatically knows your friends, your likes, dislikes etc. So in a way, you do not need to “build” your profile like you had to do for Facebook or Orkut.

So, naturally almost all your friends will be on G+ without you needing to ask everyone to move to FB. And practically we do not interact with all the 200+ friends we have on FB. So even if 10-20 friends (who I talk to) of mine have a G+, I am good to go.

Besides, given the speed with which one social media platform replicates another, there is hardly anything that differentiates FB from G+. Even FB has “subscriber” to replicate the Twitter follower concept.

I was however on the side of FB being the dominant player and G+ taking a different role in the future. I feel that FB with its technology genius and great people at the helm will continue to dominate the social life of people. And given the wealth of user information it has, there can be million ways in which FB can continue to generate revenue. After all, the user information is like heaven for brands. G+, however, will take a different role in the future. It will be the platform for Google to extract as much information about a user as possible. Everything that a user does on a Google platform will be channeled through G+, which will also make G+ a wealth of information for Brands. However, given Google’s dominance in search, Brands might end up finding G+ a holy grail as opposed to FB (since there is always a debate about whether users click on Brand adverts on FB).

I know I might sound contradicting in some ways in my thoughts. But this area is such that there will be views on either side that seem as valid and only time will tell whether these two platforms co-exist or not.

But given Google’s foray into diverse areas and its dominance on search, I can be pretty sure that it will take a revolution before some disruptive startup can actually displace Google. Maybe there will be new ways to search that will evolve. Maybe there will no further need to type in Google. Maybe there will be a time, when an application can gauge your thoughts and search on the basis on that.

Apple’s SIRI has already garnered popularity in voice based search.

Let’s wait and watch or should I say, let’s try to be that Disruptive model that changes the dynamics!