Is Facebook Like Google, or More Like Yahoo?

I found a blog that talked about Facebook vs. Twitter on 'The Social Media Guide-Mashable.' The blog named,'Is Facebook Like Google, or More Like Yahoo?' briefly discusses the journey both Google and Yahoo have taken.

The blog shows how Yahoo went from incorporation to IPO in one year and started acquiring different companies and diversifying itself away from the standard search engine. Yahoo had acquired classic games, sportasy, viaweb, webcal, message boards, news, instant messenger, clubs and calenders in a matter of three years.

Google on the other hand was Incorporated in 1998 and didn't make is first acquisition until 2001 (Google Groups). It took Google six years to go from founding to IPO and didn't start establishing google maps, blogger, igoogle or gmail until several years after they launched. Early on Google's main goal was to be the best search engine on the web. Having that goal be their main focus has made Google grow into one of the most profitable, powerful and popular destinations on the web.

The blog compared Facebook and MySpace to Yahoo and then Twitter to Google. The blog talks about the potential identity crisis that Facebook could go through when deciding what it really would like to be in the future whether it be a full-featured social network, an application platform, an identity platform, a micro blogging platform, a real-time search engine, or something.


With my experience with Facebook it always seems like they are finding a different application to add or a different layout to try out. Facebook seems to almost have Attention Deficit Disorder when deciding how they want to be. Facebook is now trying to reconnect with the users that they have lost to twitter by launching Facebook Lite, which is just like Facebook but with all of the many applications cut out and with less tabs to go through to get to what you want. Do I think Facebook is slowly going downhill just like Yahoo? No, but I do think that if Twitter keeps on the track of being simple, professional and easy to use they could be the top networking devices that we use. As I am getting older I can see a definite pattern of which social networking devices I use, in high school I was on Myspace and now in college I was more attracted to what Facebook had to offer and as I am looking towards my future out of college, Twitter is becoming more and more appealing.