E.T. Official Blog

Why do we use Google? That’s simple. We need some information that we don’t have. Now, Google has done an incredible job indexing information on the web and providing it to us quickly and efficiently. But, what happens before we type our query in www.google.com? On most occasions, and regardless of the nature of requested information, I’ll usually prefer to ask someone I know – and who knows me -  and trust. The required information can range between hotel recommendation, design pattern, celebrities, soccer, what ever. If someone I know and trust is available, I’ll usually ask him first before turning to Google. Wouldn’t you prefer to get a movie recommendation from one of your friends rather than checking reviews from people you don’t know?

Problem is, I want the information now and it’s not feasible to contact all of my friends to get an immediate response. With Google, I get the search results fast but it is mostly based on ranking from people I don’t know who might have few common interests with me. Google tries to provide us as accurate results as possible by taking into account personal knowledge they have about us: our location, previous queries history, sites we go to and so on. However, and despite privacy concerns, Google will never know about us more than our friends and family do.

But Facebook can.

Facebook knows who are friends are (duh!), they know what we’re talking about, what we like, events we’re going to, places we’ve been to and even how we feel. Once Facebook compiles all this information, they could provide us with better answers than Google would. Facebook could also provide us with information that Google could never find.

One of the scenes in the Movie ‘Jerry Maguire’ summarizes best all the above. Jerry and Ray (the cute kid) are exchanging “did you know” pieces of information. For illustration purposes I replaced Jerry with Google and Ray with Facebook:

Facebook: D’you know that the human head weighs 8 pounds?
Google: Did you know that Troy Aikman, in only six years, has passed for 16,303 yards?
Facebook: D’you know that bees and dogs can smell fear?
Google: Did you know that the career record for hits is 4,256 by Pete Rose who is NOT in the Hall of Fame?
Facebook: D’you know that my next door neighbor has three rabbits?
Google: I… I can’t compete with that!