New York — Facebook is the undisputed mogul of social networking at the moment, but search engine titan Google Inc. has held discussions with various online gaming companies as it attempts to develop a new service to compete with social networking website Facebook, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Today, social gaming has evolved into a very important aspect of social networks. Companies like Zynga are making millions through Facebook, and Google is already rumored to have invested heavily in Zynga.
The Internet search engine giant has already held discussion with top online developers to offer their games on a new service it is building, which will go head to head with Facebook, people familiar with the matter said. Those developers include Playdom Inc., Electronic Arts Inc.’s Playfish and Zynga Game Network Inc. — a company in which Google recently took a financial stake, these people said.
The report said it is unclear when Google will introduce the new gaming offering and the plans are not finalized, but people knowledgeable with the matter said the games would be part of broader social-networking initiative that is under development by the Mountain View, Calif., company.
In an interview this week, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt refused to confirm the development of a social-networking service that would integrate social games. When asked if Google’s service might be similar to Facebook’s, Mr. Schmidt said “the world does not need a copy of the same thing.”
The search engine giant incidentally owns a social networking service named Orkut which has been pretty popular in some regions including Brazil and India. Though Facebook is working hard to snatch away users away from Orkut.
Google’s thrust into social games demonstrates the latest endeavor by the Web-search leader to capture users and advertising dollars that are increasingly flowing to social networking, an area dominated by Facebook, Twitter Inc. and others. Facebook gains a lot in return as they make revenues through their Facebook Credits system.