Both are incredible companies. There is no doubt about that. They have changed the world. But each has a profoundly different vision.

At it’s core, Google believes that at the end of all this, the world will be centred on computers, and computers will be doing everything. This may well be why Google has potentially missed the boat on  social-networking.

The Facebook model is radically different. As far as they are concerned, humans must maintain mastery over technology, rather than the other way around. The value of Facebook stems from the fact that people are the most important thing.

Facebook has come under so much scrutiny recently for its privacy-related initiatives. But under all that scrutiny, many of the founder’s objectives have been missed.

Facebook is all about transparency. It was founded on the premise that transparency will take over modern life. Indeed, you know that if you google your own name, you can’t always control what information is available on you in the public domain!

Facebook is trying to build a safer, more trusted version of the internet. By holding people to the consequences of their actions and requirements to use their real identity.

But is it right for a company to decide on whether people should be responsible or not for their own actions?  Who do Facebook think they are some would say? There is now so much data that resides about us on Facebook. Should any one company control and aggregate so much information about its users? We do not even know how it will be used in the future. This can be quite scary for some people, and understandably so.

Facebook uses some of this data for its own commercial gain, by making it available to advertisers. Is this the right thing to do?

So many questions, and in truth, I still have not made up my mind. I am not sure that a world governed by computers is the answer. So Facebook. Its vision to empower the individual is an admirable one. If they can give us the tools to enable them to communicate more efficiently, then that is not such a bad thing.

But what scares me, is that all this power is in the hands of one organisation. Soon, they will have as much information on us as governments do!

Food for thought..and if any of you can see the end result, please do let us know.