Fierce Competition Between Google, Facebook and Myspace

There is currently a fierce competition underway between Google, Facebook and Myspace for the best full-service social networking hub. Google, as always, is striving to dominate user services from email, chatting, blogging and now social networking. Facebook and Myspace have also been competing to become the point of origin for all user activities.

What this means is that Google, Myspace and Facebook all want to be the point of origin from which you visit and view other sites. Facebook has recently upped the competition by announcing a new and improved Facebook Connect application. Facebook tried to release Facebook Connect about a year ago, but there were problems with maintaining security and user privacy.

Facebook Connect will partner with sites including, but not limited to, Twitter, Hulu and Digg. Once users log on to Facebook, they will be able to coordinate many of their favorite sites in one location. This will keep people logged onto Facebook for hours at a time and allows Facebook to collect valuable information about user browsing habits. This information will allow for more targeted ads, marketing and future services that will be better received by the user.

Friend Connect Program

Google and Myspace are still in the running, however, with Google’s newly released Friend Connect program. It functions much in the same way as Facebook Connect (notice a similarity?), and although Facebook was first to come out with the idea, Google’s gargantuan web presence may give it an upper hand in the competition.

Facebook’s Always Increasing Numbers

My money is on Facebook. Facebook has experienced steadily increasing user numbers for years and is better known as a social networking platform. Also, with Facebook’s third-party applications that users can now add to their profiles, they have already become a much more convenient way to stay current on sites such as Digg, Twitter or blog feeds like Post Secret. Third-party applications were an instant success and now almost every respectable website has a Facebook application that allows Facebook users to receive updates in their news feed. Facebook Connect is just one more step in the right direction.

–Rachel