Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is gunning for Google, and Internet “court jester” Esther Dyson is cheering him on.

In touting the “social utility’s” usage numbers for the F8 launch, Zuckerberg warned, Google here we come. At the Web 2.0 NY conference last week, Esther Dyson professed her belief that while Google does not really represent the “end of the world,” Facebook is indeed the Web world’s future.

Are they right? After all, news of F8 “killer” application success is not lacking.

Is Facebook on its way to becoming the next Google then? YES, in many ways, but not the most obvious ones. Below are just some of the Googley traits that Facebook is emulating.

GOOGLE IS RUN BY “ROCKET SCIENTISTS”; FACEBOOK ENGINEERS ARE EVEN BETTER

Justin Rosenstein, ex-Google engineer, is reportedly soliciting the Web’s best and brightest to join him in his new found religion: Who needs Google, I’ve got Facebook:

A couple of months ago, after three years as a Google product manager, I decided to leave for Facebook. I am writing this note to spread Good News to all the friends I haven’t already overwhelmed with my enthusiasm: Facebook really is That company.Which company? That one. That company that shows up once in a very long while — the Google of yesterday, the Microsoft of long ago. That company where large numbers of stunningly-brilliant people congregate and feed off each other’s genius. That company that’s doing with 60 engineers what teams of 600 can’t pull off. That company that’s on the cusp of Changing The World, that’s still small enough where each employee has a huge impact on the organization, where you think about working now and again, and where you know you’ll kick yourself in three years if you don’t jump on the bandwagon now, even after someone had told you that it was rolling toward the promised land. That company where everyone seems to be having the time of their life.

I’m serious. I have drunk from the kool-aid, and it is delicious. Facebook is hiring ambitiously across the organization. If you’re an engineer, UI designer, product manager, statistician, bizdev god, general entrepreneurial badass, whatever, and you would even consider considering Facebook as your new place for hat-hanging, please send me a Facebook message. We can have lunch, or I can give you a tour, or we can go kick it with Mark Zuckerberg — whatever it takes.

GOOGLE’S “COMMUNICATIONS” STRATEGY IS COMMAND & CONTROL, SO IS FACEBOOK’S

Should the “art” of Public Relations really be one of policing, rather than communicating. For ultra secretive Google and ultra sensitive Facebook, apparently.

Google is legendary for its unwillignnes to engage in any real, meaningful communication with anyone outside of the Googleplex, publicly. CEO Eic Schmidt’s refusal to take press questions during a public Q & A at the Personal DEMOCRACY Forum in NYC that his own company sponsored says it all, and is worthy of a SNL skit, to boot (just don’t upload it to YouTube without NBC’s authorization).

SEE: Google: The Great Intimidator

The Facebook communications strategy appears inspired by Google’s “we’ll tell you what you need to know when you need to know it, as long as you repeat what we say and how we say it.”

While the Internet’s media world basked in Zuckerberg’s F8 shadow in San Francisco last month, even regaling every article of (non) clothing the future ruler of the Web universe sported, a (very) few managed to beware the massive Facebook PR hype and see through Zuckerberg’s pitch, such as noticing a “ban” on references to “MySpace” or “social network.”

Facebook, like Google, operates under the premise that secrecy is a competitive advantage and, like Google, uses chosen media to its advantege to spread its own sanitized gospel.

Case in point: Facebook Marketplace. The Facebook “communication” strategy of pre-announcing with vague, but glowing, generalizations via chosen mainstream media resulted in confusion among the Facebook faithful in the blogosphere, as communications from Facebook were not forthcoming.

GOOGLE LOVE IS FREE, BUT SCARCE, SO IS FACEBOOK’S

Wouldn’t a number one “organic” Google SERP position be grand. Free Googley traffic! Alas, there is but one number one Google ranking at a time, even as millions of Websites vie for the slot.

The odds of a Website being ordained the “most relevant” by Google may not be as low as the odds of winning “the lottery,” but it doesn’t feel any different!

Just as legions of consumers line up for an unlkikely shot at mulit-million dollar lottery jackpots, millions of Webmasters also hold out generally unreasonable hope that Google SERP love will shine, on them.

The same phenomenon is now happening with the vaunted “Facebook platform.” While tales of iLike off the charts success spur would be F8 developers on, “obscurity kills,” is the more likely scenario, rather than a tongue in cheek “success kills.”

Facebook “Underground Apps” can be likened to Google “black hat” SEO. When the “free” stakes are so high, people will spend mightily to reap the perceived benefits.

IS FACEBOOK THE NEXT GOOGLE? Facebook is already very Googley, but NOT in a good way.

ALSO: Google Beware: Facebook Love Blooms and MySpace to Facebook: Our Friends Rule

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN