Facebook vs. Google: The battle for the future of the Web

November 07, 2011 | Online Marketing

In the long history of tech rivalries, rarely has there been a battle as competitive as the raging war between the web's wonder twins. They are fighting to see which of them will determine the future of the web -- and the outcome will affect the way we get information, communicate, and buy and sell.

Google has two goals with social media: One is to slow the momentum of Facebook; the other is to use data from Google+ to improve things like search, maps, and ads.

The company says the latter goal is the more important one. "We can make search better," Gundotra says. "We can make YouTube and Gmail better. We can make our ads more relevant." He later adds: "Google+ will touch every aspect of Google."

In the most recent quarter, Google added nearly 2,600 employees. That's almost as many people as work at Facebook, and they have a clear mandate: to turn Google into a superpower of the social web.

Get the full story at Fortune magazine

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