Facebook soon bigger than Google?

In a piece at the normally unlinkable TechCrunch, Adam Rifkin argues that Facebook could be bigger than Google (revenue-wise) in five years. Rifkin makes a compelling argument.

Facebook Advertising does not directly compete with the text advertisements of Google’s AdWords and AdSense. Instead Facebook is siphoning from Madison Avenue TV ad spend dollars. Television advertising represented $60 billion in 2009, or roughly one out of every two dollars spent on advertising in the U.S.; the main challenge marketers have with the Internet till recently has been that there aren’t too many places where they can reach almost everybody with one single ad spend. Facebook fixes that problem.

• Adam Rifkin
• advertising
• Facebook
• Google

Google’s anti-social software

Bang on essay by Adam Rifkin about the differences in approach and culture between Google (Orkut, Wave, Buzz) and other recent social successes (Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook). Lots of good stuff here:

Google apps are for working and getting things done; social apps are for interacting and having fun.

Social apps offer a steady diet of junk food to keep us addicted; Google apps offer mostly bamboo.

Social apps are whimsical and fun; Google apps are whittled and functional.

(via sippey)

• Adam Rifkin
• Google