Google And Facebook at War? Android Gingerbread blocks Facebook Contacts
Posted: Friday, February 25, 2011
by Jennifer Stewart
Stepping out of History
The cyber giants are at war. Just when the rest of the world is trying to find a peaceable way to survive in harmony, Google and Facebook are gearing up for a go at each other's throats. Well, it's not really war yet. More like sniper fire.
Seriously, what's with these guys, don't they both have enough power as it is? How many millions of users do they both have? Can't they live in harmony? It's going to be Israel versus Palestine all over again if they aren't careful. It's all your fault! No! You started it! I'm not stopping if you won't stop first!
The giants have been at it for a while now. In November 2010 Google decided to block contact information being exported from Gmail, because Facebook wasn’t sharing data reciprocally. Google said it was disappointed, and Facebook refused to comment. But they responded by adding a link which would allow users to move their Gmail contacts to a computer and upload them from there to Facebook. So there!
Google’s problem is that Facebook’s original Android application allowed people to transfer their Facebook contacts into the phone’s address book, but couldn’t export them as Facebook retained control.
Google got its revenge with the update for its newest Android mobile operating system – the Gingerbread Version - which is only available for Nexus One and Nexus S (manufactured for Google). Facebook contacts will disappear from the phone’s address book. Take that!
What am I missing here? I would have thought it would make people not want the phones, since everybody loves Facebook. And won’t it open the door for somebody else to come in and make a deal with Facebook?
With 500 million users, Facebook is a gold mine of data, but it’s selective about who it will share that data with. Everybody wants a deal with it, and Microsoft arranged one for its Bing search engine, but Google is out of the loop. I guess the old adage keep your friends close and your enemies closer doesn’t apply here. It’s more like keep your enemies out.
In the realm of the giants Bing is clearly not a threat to anybody. But alliances make and break the dominance of kings. Wouldn’t it be funny if Bing ended up being King of the cyber jungle because Google and Facebook were bickering and not paying attention. If they’re into power so much you’d think they’d get married. Google is the biggest data repository, and Facebook has the most social interaction.
But they don’t want to share. They want to defeat each other. And now they’re playing games. It’s going to end in tears. One thing I’m sure of. Nothing stays the same. And absolute power corrupts. For reasons I’m can’t completely track I tend to think of Google as being more trustworthy, but how long will that last? Both Google and Facebook are absolutely more powerful than I’m comfortable with, that’s for sure. And the wealth is insane. Call me old-fashioned, but I think it’s just not healthy.
Seriously, what's with these guys, don't they both have enough power as it is? How many millions of users do they both have? Can't they live in harmony? It's going to be Israel versus Palestine all over again if they aren't careful. It's all your fault! No! You started it! I'm not stopping if you won't stop first!
Google’s problem is that Facebook’s original Android application allowed people to transfer their Facebook contacts into the phone’s address book, but couldn’t export them as Facebook retained control.
Google got its revenge with the update for its newest Android mobile operating system – the Gingerbread Version - which is only available for Nexus One and Nexus S (manufactured for Google). Facebook contacts will disappear from the phone’s address book. Take that!
What am I missing here? I would have thought it would make people not want the phones, since everybody loves Facebook. And won’t it open the door for somebody else to come in and make a deal with Facebook?
With 500 million users, Facebook is a gold mine of data, but it’s selective about who it will share that data with. Everybody wants a deal with it, and Microsoft arranged one for its Bing search engine, but Google is out of the loop. I guess the old adage keep your friends close and your enemies closer doesn’t apply here. It’s more like keep your enemies out.
In the realm of the giants Bing is clearly not a threat to anybody. But alliances make and break the dominance of kings. Wouldn’t it be funny if Bing ended up being King of the cyber jungle because Google and Facebook were bickering and not paying attention. If they’re into power so much you’d think they’d get married. Google is the biggest data repository, and Facebook has the most social interaction.
But they don’t want to share. They want to defeat each other. And now they’re playing games. It’s going to end in tears. One thing I’m sure of. Nothing stays the same. And absolute power corrupts. For reasons I’m can’t completely track I tend to think of Google as being more trustworthy, but how long will that last? Both Google and Facebook are absolutely more powerful than I’m comfortable with, that’s for sure. And the wealth is insane. Call me old-fashioned, but I think it’s just not healthy.
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Hi Jennifer.
I didn't really understand a lot of what you were reporting. It's not you, it's just that I don't keep up with these things and don't have base knowledge about it. But ... you are certainly right about it not making any sense. Why DON'T they just cooperate? I bet it would be so much easier.
Thanks for the update!
Hugs,
DianneHi Dianne, it took me a while to get my head around it when I was reading about it!
First it was Coke v/s Pepsi and now it's Google v/s Facebook? :D I trust neither Google nor Facebook. It's all about power and money. You got something to offer they open the door for you, otherwise please keep Googling and playing games on Facebook. :-) Right now, money brings power and recognition but I am sure this trend will change sooner or later.I think it will change, too. And Google and Facebook will trip over themselves.
I couldn't agree more Jenn. There should be far more players with larger shares of the pie, maybe that would keep people like Google from putting the Google slap on whomever they wish for whatever they want. That's not playing nice, and I don't like mean people. But what can you do if people keep migrating to the same sources for their information?I don't like mean people either, David. As for your last sentence, I've been thinking about this a lot. I use only Google and I've become dependent on them, it's not good. I'm going to start using Bing.Bing's good, I like Yahoo Search, but don't forget our good buddies SearchWarp Search, they're pretty darn good and a nice engine to support.:-) In fact we all ought to do our civic duty and write some information on what ever forums available to us extolling the virtues of our good friends service. I think they've earned the support personally. Good day.Good idea, David.
I find this very interesting, Jenn. I'm currently reading the book, "The Master Switch". It's definitely the most interesting tech/history book I've ever read. It lays out 'The Cycle' of businesses which have started in someone's attic or garage (the telegraph, the phone, the radio, Google, etc.) and have gone on to World domination.
The book has taught me a business term that I've never heard before: The Kronos Effect. It's named after the Greek mythical Titan / ruler of the Universe which felt threatened by his babies, worrying that they would some day replace him as ruler. Every time his wife became pregnant and gave birth, he would EAT his baby.
It's a matter of public record that every new idea that comes along which might threaten either Google or Facebook, one or the other tries to gobble it up by purchasing the company which owns the idea. This battle really is the clash of the Titans!The book sounds amazing, Bruce - good review there! I didn't realize these two are gobbling up every new idea. They're going to get indigestion. But what I don't like are the casualties. I saw on CNN today that people are going crazy, reporting the same thing as you - 40% drop.Yeah, it's funny that it seems consistent at 40% with most websites reporting a drop. I haven't heard a plausible explanation for how even Google could be so consistent with so many websites.
I'm constantly reading comments from webmasters who say they will have to lay off employees Monday morning... it's really sad. I'm still not sure I'd blame Google for all this, I think their intentions are probably good. But I do think they've made some pretty big mistakes with this update.
I don't think any articles from the core group of SearchWarp writers have been effected, they may even be more popular than before. We have been able to do a lot of good things with the money coming from the "How to Tell if You Are Pregnant" article but it looks like that has come to an end.
Our goal has to be the same as Google's stated goal: We need to serve the end-users (readers) in the best way possible. I thought we were already doing that, though.I don't understand why Google can't distinguish between the original article and the other places where it was posted or plagiarized. Or have I misunderstood completely?That really is the heart of the matter. What makes it difficult is when articles are indirectly copied... we see people copy paragraphs from 3 or more different articles, then run it through a word spinner. This would be difficult for a computer to tell that it was copied, but then multiply that by millions of new articles like this every day, and Google has a difficult job on their hands.
My guess is that this update has a lot to do with measuring grammatical issues in articles, which may be the best way to determine if an article is copied or spun. Years ago Google said they could tell the education level of a person by analyzing their writing. I'm sure they've improved on this, so they can probably tell if two paragraphs are written by two different people, but all this would be undetectable by a human reader.
It doesn't seem like SearchWarp was hit with a site-wide penalty, only certain articles were hit. Some articles on SW are actually doing better now, though, but I sure can't tell what the difference is, and it sure seems like Google has made a lot of mistakes in determining which articles are good and which are bad.
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