• GigaOm, Thursday, August 26, 2010 1:42 PM

What's wrong with Google's social media strategy? GigaOm's Adam Rifkin has tons to say on the matter. For, by going after social game makers, the search giant "is gearing up to fight a Facebook that doesn't even exist anymore: Interactive brand conversations are the future, not games!" For the benefit of Google and any upstart eyeing the social space, Rifkin breaks down the field into four basic truths: Real social engagement comes from photo-sharing and chat ("Real social engagement comes from photo-sharing and chat"); What worked two years ago does not work now; Engaging applications spam their users ("Google doesn't have the stomach for such behavior"); and many people are just not into social games. (Put Around the Net in that latter category.)

What's more, "The whole gaming ecosystem feels like it's about to collapse on itself," writes Rifkin. "For Facebook, games were a means to an end: a way to experiment with the pay-for-application-installs business model long enough to evolve into an advertising unit allowing brands and companies to promote (and pay for 'likes' on) their Facebook Pages." What Google needs, Rifkin concludes: "is a set of tools to make normal web sites as socially interactive and easy to manage as Facebook Pages."

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