Today in Social

A couple of posts today wonder if Google+ is “losing” to Facebook, and whether it’s even intended to be a social network. And Fortune has a long story on the competition between the two. It doesn’t break any news, but is a fair backgrounder. I’ve written a few times about what the two companies are actually competing for: understanding the interest graph, identity services, ad dollars, different roles in web navigation and a variety of communications services. And indeed, Google’s strategy is to integrate Google+ technologies into many of its own applications, in addition to establishing core platform technologies. Isn’t that what they say about competing from a disadvantage? Change the rules of the game? Sure, but Facebook’s already playing by similar rules by encouraging developers to use its technologies both on and off its own site.