Tech Cold War: Facebook vs. Google

Tech Cold War: Facebook vs. Google

A war rages on as we speak, and it’s more intense than any war in Game of Thrones. The war I speak of is the battle between Facebook and Google for online supremacy.

Both companies have transcended their original purpose and mission, and a huge driving force of that change has been acquisitions. Google and Facebook are perennial newsmakers, due to their ever-expanding product and service offerings.

Last week at Google I/O, an annual software-developer conference, the tech giant announced that it is launching an initiative that will allow cell phone manufacturers the ability to produce low-cost, high performing cell phones that can use Google’s operating system. This program is aimed toward developing countries on the rise and the devices will be in the sub-$100 range. The program is set to launch in India, with three manufacturers participating in the pilot program.

Facebook, on the other hand, has been in the news recently for a much less PR-friendly reason. The social media giant is under heavy criticism for conducting a study on a small sub-section of users without their consent for a brief period in 2012. The study’s aim was to alter the emotional state of 700,000 users by manipulating the amount of positive and negative content in the users’ news feed. They were looking for something they called the “emotional contagion” effect – basically whether less positive stories would make users more negative and vice versa. The study has triggered an intense debate on the ethicality of the study and Facebook’s lack of respect for the users’ emotions and privacy.

Original infographic from: WhoIsHostingThis.com