July 14, 2011, 1:34 PM — As the Google+ invasion continues, Facebook is feeling the heat. Although Facebook still has over 700 million users, some estimates say that Google's social network is on track to top 20 million users by this weekend. That's over 1 million new users a day since the service launched
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared to go on the offensive the day Google+ debuted, alerting the world that his company would in turn announce "something amazing."
At the resulting press conference on July 6, Zuckerberg protested (perhaps a little too much) that Facebook wasn't worried about the amazing success of Google's social network. The features he announced that day, including group and video chat, seem clearly aimed at Google+, but appear not to have set the world on fire. What can Facebook do to win back the crowd?
Zuckerberg called the press conference "the start of announcement season," so Facebook undoubtedly has more tricks up its sleeve to compete with Google+. But what kinds of services will Facebook offer, and will the new features really help the site stay on top in the social networking game?
Here are five things we think Facebook could do to cope with the power and possibilities of Google+.
Make New Friends
Facebook certainly has the advantage right now when it comes to user base, but the company can't just pretend that Google+ will follow Google Wave or Orkut and die a quiet death.
As long as the two companies insulate themselves from each other, users frustrated with having to repeat themselves and upload photos multiple times will end up choosing the sleeker social network over the older, tired one. I refer you to the Facebook and MySpace struggle of 2004-2010--except this time Facebook risks repeating MySpace's mistakes.
Instead, Facebook should put differences aside and allow Google+ users to import their friends from Facebook to Google+. Facebook should deal with Google+ the same way it dealt with Twitter: Permit Google+ users to link their updates to Facebook and, in exchange, Facebook opens up its content to Google+.
Imagine exporting your Facebook friends to Google+, organizing them into smaller Circles and a larger "Facebook" Circle, and then updating your status in Google+ with a #fb hashtag (as Twitter allows you to do) to make the update appear in your Facebook news feed.
In the end, Facebook would facilitate more sharing on its site, by getting both Google+ and Twitter updates integrated into its news feeds, which makes for more-targeted ads. And maybe with a loose federation of Facebook, Google+, and Twitter, users could construct more-intricate social networks--and no social network has to die.
--Megan Geuss, Staff Editor
Build an Ecosystem
Facebook has 700 million users for a reason: It's functional. As much as everyone likes to complain about it, Facebook has so many great features--such as chat and events--that I feel like I can't do better going anywhere else. Still, if Facebook wants to survive, it needs to weave different features together in such a way that keeps people like me on the site.
Although Facebook is a terrific platform for many things, it isn't the one-stop shop for Web services that Google is fast becoming. Remember that Facebook and Google are competing to be "always-on" Web destinations. The problem with Facebook's modular approach is that it gives me too many reasons to step away. I often find myself surfing away from Facebook for some vital service it doesn't provide, or closing out the window when I'm "done" with the site.
Facebook isn't ignorant of the problem: At a press conference last week, Zuckerberg laid out a vision for the future in which Facebook would partner with other sites to bring sharing across the Web. Even when you're on Hulu, for example, you'd still be sharing on Facebook.
But I'd also like to have more sharing across the Facebook site itself. Facebook needs to think of its services not as individual, modular apps but as linked services, the same way Google does. Groups, chat, and events are starting to see some integration, but the social networking giant still has a long way to go before I can, for instance, organize, create, and share an event just on Facebook.
--David Daw, Staff Editor
