Google's Anti-Facebook Strategy: A Piecemeal Entry into Social Networking
Waiting for the official announcement of Google's (GOOG) huge social networking entry that will be designed to seriously challenge Facebook? Better cool your heels, says Google CEO Eric Schmidt, according to a Reuters report. Google plans to gradually roll out some social networking features that will bolt onto its core products beginning in the fall, rather than introducing a full-fledged, whiz-bang, standalone social networking service.
The Web search leader has been snapping up acquisitions at a torrid pace lately, among them several with a social networking flavor, such social games developer SocialDeck and photo-sharing apps developer Slide. Industry watchers chalk up those purchases to Google's anti-Facebook maneuvers as it moves to combat the increasingly larger and loftier threat to its user base and advertisers.
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Despite the competition Facebook poses to it for online eyeball time, Google hasn't been afraid to pull the plug on some of its earlier social networking efforts when they have failed to catch on, such as Wave, an online communications tool, according to Reuters.
This time, apparently, Google wants to take it slower, and get it right.
