Let battle commence: Facebook vs Google is about to get serious

There is an interesting guest post on Social Media news site Mashable about the ‘billion dollar battle’ between Facebook and Google to be your default social profile.

It highlights how the talk around location based services and group purchasing tools hasn’t yet gone mainstream, despite the hype. The real questions are whether Google Buzz and Wave are going to reach their much vaunted potential and if social commerce (the ability to buy ‘direct’ from within Facebook) is the way forward for retailers. Check out sites like Payvment to see what this is all about.

The article also looks at the phenomenon of virtual gifts. I have never personally given a virtual gift as I think they are nonsensical; however, other people clearly disagree as there is apparently a $1 billion market in the US alone.

Both Google and Facebook are moving towards ‘doing an Amazon’ and making it easier and quicker to move to point of purchase when looking at sites that have jumped on the social commerce bandwagon by accepting integration with the internet’s two biggest players.

The contributor asks who will you choose, which is an interesting question. But I want to know whether you are happy having one default browser that essentially follows you around the web, eventually giving almost omnipotent influence over your web lives? It appears it will be really useful and make purchasing quicker and having two companies competing will hopefully mean better offerings for the wider world.