Facebook, Now with added Live Search!

I often get comments when I walk into work on a Monday about the contents of my blogs. Normally it`s along the lines of “Another blog about Facebook again Mart, should`ve guessed”.

Well, yeah, it`s not my fault that Facebook have been and still are causing a stir within the Internet community. They`re just big news all the time. There`s always something else to comment on.

Another popular topic is the never ending Google vs Microsoft vs Yahoo debate. Again there`s always something to comment on when it comes to these three battling it out to become the world`s largest provider of everything “Search”.
It is not however often that you get a topic of conversation that involves both topics. This is the case today.

If you haven`t heard MS have gone ahead and bought a percentage stake within the social networking site then where have you been? From a competition point of view it allows them to make sure that the all empowering Google don`t get their hands on it. From a search point of view don`t be surprised to see in the near future a search feature added to Facebook`s never ending list of services. The downside… it`s going to be Microsoft Live Search as the basis for the service.

From MS`s point of view that`s great. Loads more traffic to our search engine, loads more people using it. Fantastic. Even more of a plus they`ll probably be able to get some of the highly valued Paid advertising real estate that comes with the edges around Facebook. All for a cool $240 million, bargain.

The reasoning, well at the moment in order for a user to conduct a web search they have to leave Facebook in order to do so. So why not have them leaving via a Live Search and hope that they leave via the paid ads to recoup the revenue. Good thinking but what I think is going to happen is that users are going to keep leaving to go over to Google and search there. I know that`s exactly what I`m going to do. Why? Because, and as much as I like Bill and his products, they haven`t quite caught up with Google yet have they.

Martin
Natural SEO Project Manager and Network Administrator

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