What you explained is a very well known problem in marketing and advertising. It's not enough to be the "thing" the customer is looking for, you have to be ther

What you explained is a very well known problem in marketing and advertising. It's not enough to be the "thing" the customer is looking for, you have to be there at the time they want to purchase. That is Google's greatest advantage: when you're looking to purchase something, you turn to search, not to social. I see a couple of things happening though: * Not all purchases are customer initiated, and based on the time users are spending on Facebook, they're in a much better position to capitalize on impulse and casual purchases. * I've seen an increase in the number of friends who post "Hey, what phone should I get" and similar questions. This social behavior was commonplace prior to the advent of relevant, usable search. We may see a return to this leveraging of social knowledge for important purchases. Facebook has a significant advantage there. Even with virtually zero effort, Facebook is going to begin to eat in to Google's territory, simply as a result of the sheer volume of eyes on ads. Right now, Facebook is continuing to focus on engaging users. They're digging deep roots in to our lives, and appear to be focusing on partnerships that aren't ad-related right now. These partnerships are also in markets that are inherently social. Music, for example, is a very social product. It makes perfect sense for Facebook to form strong partnerships there. It's difficult to say when (or if) Facebook will focus on general advertising as a revenue stream. They certainly have a product, but I don't know how effective it is. I've seen a fair number of anecdotal write-ups that suggest it doesn't work all that well, but for individuals with a rational, causal mindset, advertising frequently "does not compute", so it's hard to say if there isn't significant bias there.