Are Facebook Wrong To Challenge Google’s Web Supremacy?

Despite posting a 40% increase in revenues for the last year, Facebook saw their profits drop by almost 75%.  The reason given for this drop was the increase in the money dedicated to research and development being carried out by the company.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out who they are looking to target with this research and development, either. Facebook are one of the growing number of companies around the world that are looking to take on Google, and establish a dominant overall web presence rather than merely being the kings of social media.

While Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg rarely mentions Google by name – he did, however, go so far as to state Graph Search was ‘not aimed at taking Google on’ – he is kidding no-one in terms of who he sees as the major competitor on the horizon.

The two businesses make no effort to pretend they get along, either, and while there may not be the open warfare that characterizes so much of Google’s relationship with Apple, it serves as an intriguing backdrop for the watching technology world.

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Is spending so much money on ‘research and development’ healthy? This question is exacerbated further when you consider that controversy over privacy and the way photographs are used are in some cases turning people away from Facebook. Is Facebook wise to be taking on Google?

Healthy Competition

Of course, without competition there is no real market. If it wasn’t for the hundreds of other search engine providers doing what they do, Google wouldn’t be the enormous brand it is today, with the full range of products and services it provides.

While competition is good for technology markets overall, it could blow a huge hole in Facebook’s finances and service offerings in the long term. What happens if that money doesn’t recoup itself in advertising revenues, or the share price of the company falls dramatically again having recovered to hit above the $30 mark again?

Does Zuckerberg mean it when he says products such as Graph Search aren’t a shot at Google, or has he resigned himself to the fact that it couldn’t compete even if they wanted it to?

Facebook Has To Act

While they can choose how much money they spend in challenging Google, the problem for Facebook is that they have to do it. Google+ is still growing as a social media platform, and sooner or later will pose a real threat to Facebook.

The problem is that Facebook would probably be better off still being Facebook, and looking to refine what they do, rather than offering up poor imitations and unpopular platforms that badly ape what Google have been doing for years.

Facebook aren’t wrong to be taking Google on, but how they do it could mean fortune or disaster for the company in the long-term.

Karl is an online content writer across a number of industries, but takes an interest in writing specifically around technology businesses, business development, and business turnaround.