Thinking Out Loud: Facebook

John Battelle's Searchblog
"There is no question that Mark and Facebook are getting the Google circa 2004 treatment," says search guru John Battelle on his Searchblog. Mark Zuckerberg's story is similar to that of Google boys Sergey Brin and Larry Page. A young entrepreneur drops out of a top college (Harvard) to nurture "a simple but powerful idea" into a billion-dollar business.
Facebook still has a long, long way to go to get into Google territory, but Zuckerberg's open app decision may have given the social network the legs it needs to grow into something truly huge. But Facebook has a different sort of problem to Google, in that it can't necessarily beat its competitors by offering better technology. The business of social networking is all about the users, innovation, and ease-of-use.
Battelle lists a bunch of questions that he'll ask Zuckerberg at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. Among them: "How do you handicap the competition, and what will keep Facebook on its current growth trajectory?" Is Facebook on the path to direct competition with Google? "Can you imagine Facebook as a broader search or portal company?" Finally, Battelle will ask about the future of advertising on Facebook, more pointedly, how it intends to grow. - Read the whole story...