Back in March, WebProNews looked at how Facebook was driving more traffic to some websites than even Google was. While, that was certainly not the case for everybody, it was still fascinating to see.

We also looked at how the lines between Facebook and Google were getting closer together in terms of unique visitors. Well, it's July now, and they have gotten even closer. The latest data from Compete shows the numbers up until June 20. Compete has Google.com at 145,948,025 and Facebook.com at 122,559,672 on that date.

Luckily for Google, the lines getting closer together is not so much a product of people going to Google.com less. They're just going to Facebook.com more. It looks like Google use has remained relatively flat, as Facebook use just continues to grow tremendously.

For most sites, a lack of significant growth wouldn't be looked upon as incredibly favorable, but how much further can Google really go up in terms of search market share. Google is already so far ahead of the game, the company should be happy that it's not losing an incredible amount. Bing has edged up a bit since its launch, but it has a long way to go before it crowds Google.

The competition is there, and Google knows it, but even overlap between Google and Bing use has remained relatively steady since the initial Bing hype wore down.

But back to Google and Facebook. Google.com and Facebook.com serve very different purposes. People go to Google to find information. They go to Facebook to hang out. The threat to Google here is really more about what people are spending their online time doing. As it stands right now, it appears that people are just spending more time online in general (especially kids). This leaves plenty of room for Google searches and Facebook socializing.

Of course there are plenty of variables to consider as well. These are just two homepages. This doesn’t include search boxes in web browsers, things like Facebook Connect, or any other products from either company.

Google is part of the "PointSmart ClickSafe Task Force," which is an organization that was set up to help keep kids safe online. This week, the task force released its Recommendations for Best Practices for Online Safety and Literacy, which it has been working on for nearly a year.

"The most important and timely recommendation from the report (which previous online safety task forces all agree upon) is the need for digital media literacy and safety education that empowers kids, parents, and educators," says Google Policy Analyst Jennifer Marsh. "It's important that kids of all ages learn what it mean to be a digital citizen and how to navigate the online world safely, and it's equally important that parents and educators have the resources and online tools to help kids make the right choices online."

The guidelines discussed in the Task Force's document cover things like:

1. Education and information
2. Registration/creation of user profiles
3. Identify authentication and age verification
4. Content screening
5. Safe searching.

Google views its own role in the online safety as children as consisting of three primary elements.

"First, we empower families with powerful and innovative tools to create a safe experience online, like SafeSearch, community flagging tools, and granular privacy controls for our products," says Marsh. "Second, we partner with law enforcement and industry partners to stop illegal content and activity online -- we're especially proud of our work with NCMEC and the technology we provided them to fight child exploitation online. Third, we support educational efforts -- both Google and YouTube have developed online safety resources for parents and kids, including a Online Family Safety Guide, and we continue to work and support many of the non-profit organizations doing great work in this space including FOSI, NCMEC, Common Sense Media, and iKeepSafe."

 

Marsh says Google supports the SAFE Internet Act, which would establish a $175 million competitive grant program for state and local education agencies and nonprofit organizations to promote Internet safety education.

Google provides tips for online safety here. Of course there is more information at the Task Force's site.

The initial announcement about Google Chrome OS was, while exciting, extremely lacking in details.  Now, Google's decided to share a bit more info, and the facts paint an interesting picture about the state of the operating system's development. 

Is it nearly finished?  Not even started?  Here's the evidence supporting that first idea: according to a FAQ post on the Google Chrome Blog, the Google Chrome OS team is working with an impressive list of computer products corporations including Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba.

So it might be that the operating system's already getting stuck in various ready-to-buy boxes.

On the other hand, the post states, "If you are interested in a full time position as a software engineer please visit the jobs pages for the following offices and indicate that you are interested in Chrome."  Then the cities of Aarhus, Kirkland, London, Montreal, Mountain View, Reston, San Francisco, Santa Monica, St. Petersburg, and Tokyo are named.

So apparently the Google Chrome OS team is far shy of full strength.

Both pieces of information point to an intensive, global effort, however, which is worth recognizing.

Also, with regards to the FAQ, the Google Chrome Blog post promised, "We'll be sure to add more to this list as popular questions come in," so even more details may soon be shared.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard that Google announced that it would be releasing a new operating system called Google Chrome OS this week. One mysterious blog entry popped up soon after, claiming to have snagged some screenshots of the OS as Google demoed the product to Acer.

Here's an excerpt from that post:

Hi there. I work for a company (Sorry to be secretive, but what I am about to post could get me in big trouble) that supplies parts for Acer laptops. Today, a Google Rep visited the Acer team to install and quickly show off some of the features of the Google OS in development.

I was invited by Acer to come and view the demo.

I can say and give only what I know and have.

...

After roughly 12 hours, the person who posted this posted the following video, pretty much laughing at the tech media industry for jumping on board and linking to the screenshots.

The video lists all of the sites that linked to it, and shows all of the diggs and tweets that got these fake screenshots a nice bit of attention. To be fair though, at least some of the publications/blogs that mentioned the screenshots were quick to acknowledge that they could indeed be fakes.

It is interesting to see how quickly false information can spread though, and that is clearly the point this person was trying to make. What do you think of his/her little prank? Share your thoughts.

Meanwhile, Google has released some more details about Chrome OS.

There have been multiple reports that Twitter could replace Google. Twitter has quickly risen to become one of the most powerful sources on the Web. In 2008 alone, Compete found that the microblogging service grew 752 percent. Do you think this might make Google, the long-standing Internet giant, a tad-bit nervous or jealous?

Chris Brogan says, “…I think Google is a bit envious. I think they don’t know what to do with it all yet.”

Does this mean that Google is letting their feelings influence how they return Twitter results? There have been some rumors that Google may let the “authority” of Twitter users play a role in their results. For example, a celebrity or a well-known “authority” such as Chris Brogan could rank higher in Google results than an average Joe user.

Do you think Google is jealous of Twitter? If so, what do you think the company’s next move will be?