India Internet News

28 July 2011

This Tuesday, Facebook introduced an online guide targeted at small businesses supporting the use of social networking site.

Facebook is announcing the new web document, present at Facebook.com/business, as an "online education centre" which offers steps such as how to create a profile page, generate targeted ads and offers, and also communicate with user feedback online.

The timing is eye-catching, since it was introduced only 7 days after Google started closing all company profiles on its Google+ social network. However, Google said its only industry policy to prevent Google+ access to users, a place that has inspired a lot of controversy at present.

Recent business page of Facebook doesn't come with any new features, it only provides a lot of details that might be useful for small businesses at one place. Probably its main intention is to say just like Google+, Facebook also promotes businesses to utilize its service for company branding.

A Facebook representative said through an email that, "Facebook allows small businesses to create rich social experiences, build lasting relationships and amplify the most powerful type of marketing, word of mouth. We created Facebook.com/business to make it even easier for people to reach these objectives and grow."

This shows the second time in a month that Facebook has strived Google+ news through its own feature launch. Last July, Facebook confirmed the partnership with Skype to launch video chat features within the social networking site, only a week after Google+ created waves with its own in-app video chat feature known as Hangouts.

The timing of these events may be accidental, but it seems to be Facebook is taking Google's latest entry into the social networking landscape seriously, and so increasing its feature updates and user satisfaction leads in turn. The recent race may be stressful for Zuckerberg and company, but after all it's beneficial for users if both Google and Facebook continue to bring their A-games.