Our online social lives have moved in leaps and bounds over the past few years, some have savoured the opportunity to express themselves via social networks while others still struggle to understand it.  Whichever basket you fall into you’ll be sure to have an opinion about Facebook’s introduction of ‘Timeline’.  No doubt fuelled by the pressure of Google+, the first serious contender to its crown since it steamrollered over MySpace, Facebook is in the process of rolling out a huge suite of updates. The majority being centred around this new Timeline functionality, which is set to replace users traditional profile as soon as Zuckerberg can chat his way out of a tricky legal battle with timelines.com (another story all together).

Once we get past the expected frustration regarding our pure dislike for the way things look or the fact we can’t find that button we once overused, we’ll start to get closer to the core of what will run through the minds of Facebookers and we’ll realise very quickly that any sort of exodus from the network is going to require a much greater change than simply the way Facebook presents your data.

‘I’ll close my account’ is what you will say.  ...

Google+ is most definitely getting a few people excited at the moment, and so it should.  When one monster, free tool of the internet (Google) moves into the realm of another (Facebook) in an attempt to steal its social media crown you know it’s going to get interesting.  It’s potentially the digital Haye vs. Klitschko, except both parties are true heavyweights.

The biggest challenge to any new social network is, of course, the sheer size of Facebook’s user base.  A mind blowing 1 in 13 people on earth are now on Facebook.  Over half of the UK population has a user profile, and 50% of these are Liking or LOLing every day.

Despite the recent reports of decreasing users, the scale of Facebook’s reach gives it an enormous advantage over its competition.  The site is fast becoming the only tool consumers need online, and the only tool advertisers need to engage with their audience.  Effectively owning the communication channel between brand and consumer has placed Facebook in a very dominant position.

Of course, Google knows this all too well, as it managed to achieve exactly the same position in the search battle, much to the detriment of Yahoo and Microsoft.  Google’s pockets (and ...