Google+ (http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-presentation-that-inspired-google-2011-7#) and Facebook are at war, and who benefits? Neither Facebook nor Google benefit, they are both sinking money into competing products. The advertisers don't benefit, they have a more diffuse marketplace to buy space in. The users don't benefit, we now have two places to comment and check on our friends. Yet there are two clear winners who are winning and will continue to benefit from this ongoing war: developers and valuable startups.
First, the developers: the first shot that started this war for the Internet was fired by Google in 2007 with the founding of OpenSocial (http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/22/google-plus-opensocial-facebook/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29). Quick disclaimer: as a developer, I love the idea of OpenSocial. In short, Open Social sought to unite the social graph of the web by providing a common core functions across websites. the return fire? The Like button, the Open Social graph and thus began the Reign of Facebook (http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/25/the-age-of-facebook/).
Round 1 to Facebook.
Second, the startups benefit. Years pass, Google nurses its wounds and then, last month, comes out with it's next big assault: Google Plus. Facebook shouldn't be surprised, but there has not yet been retaliation. Google is compounding this initial assault with purchases of valuable startups like Multiply and Fridge (http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/21/g-google-acquires-privacy-centric-social-network-fridge/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29). Fridge is a privacy focused photo sharing social network, while Multiply is a shopping centric social network. Clearly, Google+ has an interesting future with potential revenue streams beyond the advertising dependencies of Facebook.
Round 2 to Google?
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