The futures of Facebook and Twitter lie in the balance as Google readies a new Gmail feature to compete against both networks' real-time communication tools.
Similar to Twitter and
Facebook, the new feature will "allow Gmail users to view a stream of status updates from people they choose to connect with,"
reports The Wall Street Journal.
The move signals that, "Google is feeling the heat from red-hot social network Facebook," according to USAToday.com. "Many former Google executives
now work at Facebook, including Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who at Google helped build the lucrative AdWords pay-per-click ad program ... Facebook has a similar pay-per-click program now.
Moreover, "If Google can get you to do more things in Gmail, they can sell more ads, because you've spent more time there," Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan tells the
newspaper.
Under the headline, "Google Launching Twitter-Killer For Gmail!" the
Business Insider writes: "If Google is smart, these status updates will pour into and out of Facebook and Twitter ... That way it will have an immediate install base of users already trained to update
everyone they know about the latest thing they viewed, thought or ate."
About being a "Twitter-killer," The Los Angeles Time's Technology blog calls the Business Insider's
characterization, "a case of blogger's hyperbole," adding, "Sure, it makes sense to integrate
social networking features into Google's most popular social product."
Likewise, under the headline, "Why Google won't give Twitter or Facebook a buzz cut tomorrow," blogger Robert Scoble argues that both networks already have too great a presence online for Google to
displace them. Also, according to Scoble, Google "isn't trusted socially," and it apparently has something called "big company disease."
"Of course," The Guardian writes, "some
might argue that Google is coming extremely late to the party, while purists will grumble that the company should keep Gmail free
of Web 2.0 clutter."
Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal et al. »