While Facebook remains on the fast track of monetizing social, the same isn’t necessarily true for other companies once thought to be serious about doing the same.
Case in point: Google.
Gene Munster, managing director and senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray specializing in Internet, appeared on Bloomberg Television‘s “Inside Track” with Erik Schatzker and Deirdre Bolton Wednesday morning to discuss Facebook and its competitors, namely Google.
According to Munster, Google has effectively “given up on social.” Arguing that Google simply “can’t recreate the social graph that’s basically won by Facebook,” Munster contends that “Facebook really is Google five years ago.”
Google, on the other hand, is essentially turning into Microsoft.
“As Facebook gets more sophisticated in terms of guessing what its users want, which is probably about 600 million people right now compared to a billion people on Google, that gap is closing very quickly,” Munster estimates. “I think you’re going to continue to see those ad dollars shift and unfortunately, Google just can’t do anything. They’re not going to create a social network that is going to steal people from Facebook.”
With regard to how much longer Google has to monetize ad revenue, Munster tells Bloomberg television that the gap is closing every day.
“You’re seeing Google growing at about 22% this year and you’re seeing Facebook growing at about 100%,” Munster says. “So I think the reality is that if you fast forward five years from now, who is going to have more revenue–Google or Facebook–it’s probably going to be Google.”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8KLN0n0JfA&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
