MONACO (Reuters) – Internet search leader Google Inc
is not building a social network to compete with Facebook, a company
executive reiterated on Thursday, despite an intensifying rivalry
between the two leading Internet groups.
"We're not working on a social network platform that's just going to be another social network platform," Google's head of mobile product development, Hugo Barra, said in answer to a question at the Monaco Media Forum.
"We do think that social is an ingredient for success for any app going
forward, search and advertising being probably the best two examples
that I would mention. So that's how we're thinking about the problem."
Social networking has exploded in popularity and begun to reshape the balance of power in the Web industry. Facebook, launched in 2004, has more than 500 million members.
Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in September the company
intended to add "layers" of social networking to its sites, rather than
unveil a flashy product, but his remarks failed to quash speculation
about a Google social network.
Google owns the social network Orkut, which is popular in Brazil and
India but has failed to expand significantly beyond those markets.
This week, Google internally announced plans to boost salaries by 10
percent in a move widely seen as an effort to staunch a stream of
engineers and managers leaving Google for faster-growing rivals like
Facebook.
Google also said recently it planned to block Facebook and other Web
services from accessing its users' information, accusing Facebook of
failing to reciprocate.