Google v. Facebook – Let's Call a Truce

Google is getting into the FTTH biz. Then there's what social media could do for its proposition. LECs take note: If they bury the hatchet, a fiber-based Googlebook will be the next truly threatening communications company.

Google Inc. has launched Buzz, which adds social media features to Gmail. Facebook is launching its own Web mail app soon. They both know they want what the other has, in other words. Instead of all these competitive moves, why not bury the hatchet and get together in monopolistic goodness? Add in Google’s voice and mobile device initiatives, and Facebook’s ability to give Google some churchin’ when it comes to privacy, and really, who needs boring old LEC monopolies? Give me a next-gen, all-IP monopoly – now that’s change we can believe in, y’all.

The Saints-Colts Super Bowl was the single-most watched event on television, ever. Google just happened to run its one-minute ad in the third quarter – signaling an effort on the part of the behemoth to reach out to users proactively. Why, exactly, is a mystery. Does Google really need a marketing strategy? It’s very ubiquitous nature seems to be strategy enough.

But it’s missing that connected planet ethos that really has the ability to make its vast lattice of influence even vaster. Consider: There are whole consultancies built on how to create and maintain social and corporate identities online. Gang members in da hood are turning to Facebook (and Twitter) for new ways to communicate threats and plans. Google has 176 million Gmail users, while Facebook has about 400 million users – more than twice Google’s base. It wants ... craves ... needs social media to be a jewel in the crown of its communications empire.

I’m going out on a limb here, I realize, but if Googlebook happened, the next logical step would be to either A) take over AT&T; or B) use its influence to advance the state of IP peering so that there’s no need to touch the PSTN. Or heck, do both.

There are things Googlebook cannot do. Like leverage real-time presence and location information kept in traditional networks. But when the communications landscape becomes overgrown with the tendrils of the new media age, will it matter? There’s an app for that! Facebook already lets me know that someone’s at Panera Bread, or wherever, thanks to a geo-tracking app that people willingly sign up for that automatically posts updates to people’s status feeds. Who needs the network when consumers will allow OTT players access to information because the application appeals to them. It’s a personalization of services taken to a privacy-shunning degree that could be landscape-changing.

Update: After posting this, news came that the Goog-Borg soon will build ultra high-speed broadband networks in several trial regions across the United States-- we're talking 1gbps FTTH. That's kind of big. And speedy. And gives it a whole new proposition as a proper carrier. Now I think I understand why Google is dabbling with mass media marketing-- if it's going to wrest home and business subs from the incumbents (and suddenly, even CLECs like XO seem like incumbents), it's going to have to expand its brand identity beyond search and Web apps. Google really now might be your next phone company, in the traditional sense of the phrase. Oh, my, folks.