Tech-giant Google has recently begun a new campaign to try and top Facebook as the worldwide leader in social networking services. This move follows the recent pressure from shareholders to recapture a percentage of the advertising dollars the company has lost to Facebook over the past few years. The agenda Google has put together seems practical, but is it realistic? Only time will tell if Google has the capacity to create a product better that is better than Facebook. The experts at Wall Street Live Chat feel that the current implications could be much worse for Facebook than Google.

Facebook has remained a strong and stable user interface for networking. Though it began as an exclusive network for Harvard, the company flawlessly adapted to every scenario it has encountered. The most recent and major feat came when Facebook started allowing anyone to sign up and create a profile. Wall Street Live Chat believes that this decision ultimately led to the demise of big social networking rival MySpace. The problem with MySpace was that it became a cluttered, slow, and unorganized network of information. Facebook, on the other hand, was able to provide a clean, organized, and speedy network for its users, and it has never stopped adapting. Today the company collects annual revenues of just under $30 billion per year.

It seems that a site this powerful – a site that has become the standard in social media for the past several years and perhaps decades to come — can’t possibly be capable of falling off a cliff.

Or can it?

It would be naĂŻve to think that the same thing Facebook did to MySpace couldn’t be done to Facebook. We live in a dog-eat-dog world that has seen giants be pummeled by rivals – Like K-Mart losing out to current retail mega-store Wal-Mart; former video rental giant Blockbuster is failing to adapt to modern trends and slowly slipping into oblivion. If it can happen to them, it can surely happen again.

Wall Street Live Chat believes that the one weakness Facebook has encountered over the years is being exploited by Google developers. Privacy is a hot topic and sensitive issue for most people, and it just so happens that privacy is at the core of Google’s new social networking engine. While Facebook has failed to increase their security and privacy features for members, Google is pushing to make the move their rival has been slow to jump on.

Google’s interest in social media has been sparked by its sliding stock, which experienced 20% losses in just one quarter. The company has had increasingly high figures in its employment numbers, as well as its spending, and it is looking for leverage in a market that demands a greedy percentage of market-share. Contrary to many expert opinions, Wall Street Live Chat feels that the advantage lies with Google.

Wall Street Live Chat doesn’t only see Google as a publicly traded giant, but as a company that is much more diversified than their rival Facebook. For example, Google has recently taken on Microsoft by providing free applications similar to those Microsoft sells in its Office software. Google has also gained a firm market share in the cellular technology industry with their Android system (although it is currently in the midst of a multi-billion dollar lawsuit with Oracle for copyright and patent infringement). Google also owns YouTube, which is the third largest site in the world. There has never been an argument regarding the number of visitors Google attracts (more than 1 billion per month); the argument lies in the area of actual time spent on site. A U.S Facebook visitor averaged 375 minutes during the month of May, while a Google user averaged only 231 minutes for the month.

Wall Street Live Chat feels Google will prevail in the war between these two tech giants. It will be interesting to see what happens with its new “Google Project” social networking platform. While Google clearly doesn’t need social networking to survive, Facebook has nothing but social networking going for it. If the “Google Project” succeeds, we could witness the brutal end of the leading social networking site, and Facebook will forever be forgotten.

*Note: Google closed the day at $493.65/Share on 6-28-11. The stock was trading at over $640/Share in parts of January of this year

Jordan R. Starling

Executive Editor

WallStreetLiveChat.com