(Venture Beat) – Facebook is out to kill Google. There, I said it. You probably think I’m crazy, but there are a bunch of macro-trends coming together, as well as several moves that Facebook got right. that support this. But first, a disclaimer: I’m the cofounder of AdEspresso, a Facebook partner that manages advertising for SMBs and SMEs. As a Marketing Partner, we do have access to privileged information not disclosed to the public, as well as a view on a broader dataset of around $250 million of Facebook Advertising Data, but the analysis that follows is not based on any of the above, rather on public information that has been disclosed in the past few weeks paired with public insights from thought leaders. Now, let’s get to the fun part.
1. The macro trend toward mobile phones
This is an easy one. But if you were busy tweeting, live-chatting or status-updating, you may still need a refresher … and Benedict Evans from Andreessen Horowitz does the job best:
Yep, the percentage of people without a cellphone is lower in South Africa than in the United States. Impressive, right? That is just a small, but significant, example of how big mobile is becoming. The trend is even more impressive compared to what the adoption has been (and continues to be) for PCs. Again, Evans from his presentation “Mobile is eating the world” of a few months ago: