C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre

.....("It is magnificent, but it is not war.") said French Marshal Pierre Bosquet watching the British light cavalry wipe itself out in The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava.

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch writes about the Google v Facebook contest for The Social Web and uses a Very Dodgy reading of World War 2 history in an article entitled "WAR! It’s Patton v. Rommel":

The Third Reich was to take over the world, as Facebook is poised to do today. All that stands between them and victory is a somewhat slow to move giant called Google (America). And our hero is also fighting another war to the death with Microsoft/Japan, making things more complicated.

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You can create any kind of playing field you want to watch this all play out. I take Europe and Africa in WWII and pit the underdog Gundotra/Patton against the guy who had everything to lose – Rommel/Facebook.

Oh dear - firstly, with a 7:2 advantage in numbers (and a 4:1 advantage in armour) and total air superiority the Allies after D-Day were hardly underdogs. (And, this may shock our US readers, but a number of other countries also fought the Germans in World War 2 - in fact the Russians took by far the most of that particular load ). Secondly, Patton was under the command of one Bernard Montgomery, the (British) general who beat Rommel twce - once in North Africa, and again in Normandy.

Not an auspicious start to the analysis methinks. Anyway, I digress. TechCrunch notes re the Google Invasion of Fortess Facebook:

Google has chosen a General in their War With Facebook – VP Engineering Vic Gundotra, we’ve heard from multiple sources. This is the person who will control overall product strategy and execution around their new efforts to find relevance in a quickly changing Internet landscape that is increasingly dominated by Facebook.

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Google hasn’t officially revealed any of its plans in social, but we’ve heard to expect them to be making a significant effort. The type of effort that suggests they’ve mortgaged the farm and have just the one crop left to plant. Their backs are against the wall. Etc.

Lose and they give control over the way the web is organized, and monetized for the next decade or so. The Age Of Facebook will begin. We’ve got an aggressive, zealous Facebook army controlling a third of the world’s Internet population, and they want more. Meanwhile, The old bully on the block, Google, can still rumble pretty well when he gets worked up enough.

To be fair, Mr Arrington is mainly looking at creating a playing field narrative to watch this all play out, and chose the Normandy invasion - just his history is a bit off.

In fact, you could better argue that Google is Germany - fighting another front with the Allies (Microsoft and Yahoo) already, it now wants to invade Facebook (Soviet Russia). This is probably more apt, as its an ideological fight for hegemony between two structured ways of organising the Web citizens. In which case Wave is Stalingrad and Bing is El Alamein..... (and followin this, Google is eventually partitioned between Facebook in the East and a Microsoft/Yahoo alliance that lands in their back yard.

But I think there is a better narrative - go back 15 years and look at how Microsoft didn't "Get" the Internet and the Web. They continually handed the resposnsibility for attacking "The Web" to underlings, who kept on failing because Microsoft as a whole was not on a "war" footing and mobilised to take on Netscape.

This changed only when Bill Gates himself turned the company around onto a "war on Netscape" footing (on Pearl Harbour day in 1995, as it happens), ordering Microsoft to throw everything at the Internet browser market. At the time, Netscape's share of that market was close to 90%; by early 2000, Netscape's share had plunged to 20%, and Microsoft's browser appeared to have won this war.

So, on this narrative path, where is Google?

Google has chosen a General in their War With Facebook – VP Engineering Vic Gundotra, we’ve heard from multiple sources. This is the person who will control overall product strategy and execution around their new efforts to find relevance in a quickly changing Internet landscape that is increasingly dominated by Facebook.

Nope, Google are not yet on a "War on Social" footing. They will only really start to win this one when The Triumvirate issue a similar Pearl Harbour memo to show they are really serious and prepared to shift the company's DNA, and take charge themselves.

What they are doing now may be Magnificent, but its not War and will likely be as ineffectual as the Charge of The Light Brigade.......