Facebook Skype: Should Google Be Worried?
July 14, 2011
Nah, Google has legs. Actually it has the world’s premier online advertising platform. Google needs content and traffic. Anything that has traffic is going to light up Google’s radar. But worry? Not so much.
ITWire reports that “Ovum says Facebook+Skype is Google’s nightmare.” Really? Ovum is pretty quick on the trigger with a big prediction.
The azure chip firm insists that the Facebook deal with Skype must have Google worried. The article quotes Ovum’s Eden Zoller:
The Facebook/ Skype tie up brings together two of the most popular communications service providers online and the video chat feature should prove a hit with Facebook’s 750 million users. . . .A deepening Facebook, Microsoft and Skype alliance is on the cards and is a powerful prospect and one that will keep Google awake at night.
We think Ovum may be too quick to downgrade the GOOG. Its Google+ is generating buzz, especially since the company is hyping it by limiting initial invitations. As writer Alex Zaharov-Reutt notes, though, Google must be careful that such tantalization does not turn to food for resentment.
In our opinion, both Google and Facebook are perpetually vulnerable. In the fast paced world of online business, anything can happen at any time. We think the social revolution is ripe for change. Those MBA-ish exogenous forces are able to creep up and bite giants like Facebook and Google. The Skype function is a consumer service. Google will respond. We think there are larger forces at work that may make these high fliers come down a bit closer to earth.
Legal eagles come to mind.
Cynthia Murrell, July 13, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
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