It’s been quite an interesting week on the Google front, with the launch of one new service after another. The one making the biggest waves (if you pardon the pun) has been Google+ (plus). It shouldn’t be surprising that I’m making lots of comparison to Facebook which is the defacto social networking standard right now. Circles is a great way of organizing and separating feeds; unlike Facebook’s fire-hose in your face approach. Also the group management user interface and experience is far better than anything Facebook offers. Does it compare to Facebook? MORE >>

Within that shrinking slice of online time, Facebook is increasingly the portal for everything.  While the “document Web” (as author Ben Elowitz terms the old-style Web) shrank by 9 percent overall, Facebook consumption increased by 69 percent, essentially stealing time from everything else.  Search engines, once the gatekeepers to the Web, are giving way to Facebook.  Google and everything it represents, is facing the first stages of irrelevancy. Hence the importance of Facebook and Twitter: people can passively wait for recommendations on what they need to know.  MORE >>

One of the best descriptions of facebook that I’ve seen (on a blog comment somewhere) was: CIA+McDonald’s=Facebook. This formula addresses the secret and intrusive aspect of Facebook…and draws attention to broad appeal and exceptional ease of use/access. Google should be worried (I address the challenge briefly in this post a few months ago: LMS vs. SNS ) – basically, Google has bet heavily on content, Facebook has bet heavily on connections/relationships. They are no more or less powerful than any other 3rd-party widget. MORE >>

When Facebook’s IPO didn’t result in a spike in its stock valuation on its first day of trading, people speculated. Was it because Facebook isn’t as hip as it once was? Here’s the truth: These questions are irrelevant to understanding whether Facebook is valued fairly or not. Disclaimers: I am not a professional financial expert, nor do I have insider knowledge about Facebook or Google. How do you make sense of Facebook’s valuation, or any stock valuation for that matter? Facebook’s current earnings are $1 billion. MORE >>

Google Plus is making waves among technology savvy social networkers. Like so many other Google products, this one is in beta and is gradually opening up to more users. One unique aspect separates Plus from other Google services. When Google Plus started out, it was already ’seeded’ with a large number of individuals who were already working on the concurrent development of the service. It was great to see how Google’s engineers solicited feedback, which they got almost instantaneously and were able to act on it quickly. Ironic that. MORE >>