Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

The big Google guns “like the Facebook guys” and they just might be gunning for Facebook, big time.

After all, Facebook is making a mint, compared to YouTube: $100 million in ‘07 revenues projected. PLUS, no $1 billion lawsuits!

From Google billionaire founder Sergey Brin to everyone’s favorite search experience superstar Marissa Mayer, Mountain View’s top Googlers are publicly, and uncharacteristically, eyeing Mark Zuckerberg’s 29 million Facebookers with universal search envy.

The most recent “official” Google position on a prospective Mountain View absorption of Facebook: “If they come to us, we’re open to talking,” Brin shared at the Allen & Co conference in Sun Valley, Idaho this week, seeking to avoid any hints of Google desperation by adding:

I really like the Facebook guys. (But) we don’t really look at companies for acqusitions unless they are really interested. I think they’re building a great company of their own.

BUT, Google’s Brin IS interested in the “lots and lots of content” that social networks are generating to create “lots and lots of Web pages.” WHY? Because Google always wants “more for us to search.”

A social networking content is good for search spiel was delivered by Marissa Mayer as well, in San Francicso at the iMeme conference:

One thing that makes search great is when there’s more content online to find. Things trend toward openess. The strength of the Interent is distribution…you want (information) to be found through a search mechanism.

Plenty of social networking “information” and “content” is being searched, found AND indexed by Google, but the prized “social graph” information being generated by Facebookers is notably absent.

Google powers MySpace search and Friendster profiles feed Google Base. Where is Facebook in the Google universal search empire? Mayers wants to know. She hopes to see Google, in the not-so-distant-future:

Be able to easily crawl and index Facebook so that people will more seamlessly search for content in social networking platforms (as cited by CNN Money).

It won’t be smooth Facebook sailing for the Googleplex, though. Google apparently has finally met its match in Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook wantonly issued a not so veiled warning to Google at the Facebook blog last week: ““Do we really need to write our own search engine?” A Facebook “Tech Lead,” Aditya Agarwal, had the honor of crowning Facebook its own self-descibed “most used people search engine on the Web.”

Will Googley old-timers Brin & Page stand for such youthful search insolence? After all, Googley “universal search” is not conceeding anything search, “people” or otherwise.

Zuckerberg shared the stage with Mayer at iMeme and rubbed salt in Google’s search wounds:

I’m constantly reminding people that I’m 23. We’re going to be around and doing this for a long time.

How is it that Facebook is NOT kissing up to Google? After all, even Google’s arch competitive rivals–Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay–know THEY need Google love: Google SERP and AdWords affection that is.

Zuckerberg, on the other hand, needs to keep the Google deep crawlers out of his not so open social networking platform to maintain his famed notion of private friendship. PLUS, with Microsoft in the Facebook ad serving camp, who needs Google AdSense!

Moreover, Zuckerberg’s desire to out pace Google is as intense as Google’s desire to destroy Microsoft is. What is Google to do? Zuckerberg will not be the pushover that YouTube Kings Chad & Steve were.

Zuckerberg may even be dreaming of the day HE can buy Google! Not so far fetched. If Facebook follows in the Google IPO skyrocket tradition, Facebook manifest destiny could very well be in the universal search cards.

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CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN