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Comment by andrewljohnson | Hacker News Reader

Most businesses can't "die" suddenly. It's very hard to turn a $850,000,000 business into a $35,000,000 in just a couple of years, unless something truly catastrophic or industry-changing occurs.

The exception to this rule is social internet companies. Social companies are built in a day and can die in a day - we've seen it happen again and again, and Facebook's scale is no protection.

To beat Verizon, you need a network. To beat Google, you need search technology, data, and great engineers. To beat a car company, you need some factories.

But to beat Zuckerburg, all you need it timing and a good strategy, and equivalent engineers. And in this case, Google seems credible on all fronts.

This is the first serious threat to Facebook's existence.

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I think unseating Facebook is much harder than you think. Not impossible, but very hard.

I'll make a friendly $100 wager with you that Google will not have more active users on Google+ than Facebook has -- as reported by each company, a reputable publication, or measured by a public analytics firm -- 5 years from now.

I'd put you on the losing end of those odds.

Google's key to driving adoption is going to be integration of all of their services into Google+, which means that they have very natural and robust funnels for acquiring a userbase, so long as their tools are integrated properly.

Given the money that Google is pouring into this, and the incentive structure for engineers and teams at Google, i have no doubt that they will come up with clever ways to make their tools more social.

'Social' is the new 'cloud' buzzword.

What does it mean to have social products? To tap into a users social network? That is what Facebook offers to any company that wants, and that is why 2/3rds of websites now have a Like and Facebook Connect button on them, it is very easy for any service to attempt the social route by tapping into the thing that only Facebook so far has, the social network.

Google cant engineer a social network using code, a social network requires specific steps to be carried out in perfect order, it cant be done overnight, you need to build smaller networks and connect them to larger networks as time progresses. It takes a long time, years even.

Reddit is social, hackernews is social. None of them have what Facebook has, real world information about living people and their relationships. Here on HN I could have 5 or 6 accounts and no-one would notice, HN, reddit and any other "social" product does not have relationships between humans. Google mail is close to a social network, except the fact that email is mostly used for business and so is most suited for something like LinkedIn, I personally have more companies mailing me than my friends. If I tomorrow made a new google mail account and began using it instead of my old one, would google be able to tell? Facebook for sure would.

> 'Social' is the new 'cloud' buzzword.

New? What rock have you been hiding under?

Wait, why does Google have to do what Facebook has done to have a successful social platform?

Facebook's goal is to supposedly map out all real world social connections, and i would first say that such a goal is a pipe dream, and second that if you judge facebook by that criteria, that almost all services will fail to meet it.

do it here: http://longbets.org/

I'll take some of that action, if we can stipulate that the particular service that beats them might not be called "Google+." Google's style is to zero in with artillery strikes rather than an all-out nuclear attack. Every time they reload and fire a new volley, they get a little closer to the target. Orkut, Buzz, Wave, and now Plus.

I'll wager you that Facebook may have more active users, but Google+ will have more active users and perhaps more activity.

I'm betting that Google+ will get more than just the early adopters.

I think that Google+ may have a chance.

That said, building a business is not just about a simple CRUD application. There is a LOT more that goes into Facebook and its adaption.

There is even more that went into its timing and filling a void that existed in the market. Zuch didn't have many engineers at first, he just found a void and filled it.

I think that there is an opportunity with Circles for G+ to fill a new void, but will it be enough? All the research in the world can't tell you. Only time will tell.

You're papering over some things here to make your point. Like the fact that "equivalent engineers" is an expensive proposition. And data centers cost as much as factories.

In fact, I'd say it's a lot easier to build another Tesla -- who moved into a shuttered NUMI factory -- than another Facebook. It's a lot easier and cheaper to hire machinists, fabricators, welders, millwrights and assembly workers than it is to hire developers. And there's no network effects to selling your product.

Facebook began earning the mindshare of people outside college campuses 7 years ago. Hardly a day. And you say "sical internet companies" as if Facebook can be compared to other social networks. Truth is, facebook has market penetration (in mindshare and daily use) unmatched in internet history outside of Google (and Amazon I suppose).

I think that G+ will be successful. But i think it'll be successful alongside Facebook, and that Facebook will be a strong, profitable, influential company for a long time to come. And that Facebook isn't nearly as easily broken as you claim: In fact, I think there's only one company capable of really threatening it, and that is of course the company that is doing just that with G+.

Also a user base needs to be generated very quickly as the people are what makes the site worth using.

To beat Facebook, you also need data centers.

To beat Zuckerberg, you need Zuckerberg+.

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