"There are several things that I think this post misses. 1) It is not clear to me that the search that Facebook is working on is a web search, and not an improved internal Facebook search. Do you have some definitive information on that? I'd be surprised if it is a web search because results would take people out of Facebook, which breaks Facebook's whole power. They rule because they keep you on Facebook. 2) You fail to understand what Google is really up to with Google+. While I'm sure that they'd love to have as many people as possible engaging on the network, they don't need them to be to accomplish their real goal: an even more powerful Google search because of personal and social signals. The reason they don't need everyone to "use" Google+ is that the real purpose of Google+ is identity. If you have a Google account of any kind, you have a G+ profile, whether you use it or not. And when you're logged in to Google (which a huge number of people are, whether or not they "use"..." - Mark Traphagen