Mission statements, simple as they are, sum up the fundamental differences between Facebook and two of its main competitors, Google and Twitter. Google looks “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Twitter wants people to “share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.” Facebook, for its part, “helps you connect and share with the people in your life.”

Right now, none of these goals is particularly less important than the other. They all matter to the future of the web. But as Facebook seeks to outperform its rivals in the quest for advertising dollars, it needs better search. And with the new real-time search engine Facebook launched this week, that’s exactly what users got.

However, despite the big improvements that were released this week, Facebook still faces tremendous challenges as it seeks to make a dent in the search market. While Google’s search isn’t particularly social, it still dominates overall query volume and continues to print money for the Internet giant. Advertisers across a variety of categories generally see a solid ROI, and Google continues to invest heavily in search innovation, making it a relentless competitor. Microsoft, a Facebook investor who also has a bundling deal with Facebook to include Bing web results on Facebook search results Pages, is also investing heavily in research and recently struck a deal to take over Yahoo’s search infrastructure.

Twitter’s search tool has matured greatly, too. After Twitter’s acquistion (and integration) of Summize last year, users have learned to search the real-time stream in new ways. For example, people can search using hashtags, a symbol (#) Twitter users employ to categorize topics. They can also search for posts on products, and discover “negative” or “positive” tweets about them. Furthermore, Twitter’s robust ecosystem of applications enhance ways in which people can query the service.

With this tough competition, Facebook knows a big key to its future rests in search — which, before the update this week, has been a marginal part of the site. With the new search product, Facebook now offers something that Google can’t: The ability to search for what your friends have said on a certain topic or product. On the Facebook search results page, your friends’ status updates, videos, pictures and other pieces of rich content are shown when you search for big news items or a new movie.

This is a huge advantage for Facebook over its competitors in several search categories. Google can only return results that its algorithm has generated based on inferred link authority and content relevance. As for Twitter, while you can use applications (like TweetDeck) that allow you to wall off your friends from all the strangers and acquaintances you might follow, it needs to find ways to improve identity and filtering in order to show results from people you know and trust most.

In the future, helping users search for what their friends have said on monetizable topics like products will be attractive to marketers looking to serve up advertisements, though the model in which Facebook does it will need to be refined.  As we’ve also noted, Facebook could take some notes from Twitter and expand the capabilities of its real time search by letting developers access APIs and build added functionality on top of the site.

Conclusion

But Facebook still faces some challenges around search, an important technology area for the company’s future. At this point, the introduction of a new, helpful search tool will require some old-fashioned awareness building to let users to know it’s there and learn how to use it well. With any piece of technology people have used for a number of years, they become used to what it does well, and utilize it accordingly.

Facebook has always been a place to communicate with friends. By and large, it hasn’t been a place to actively search for what people are saying around products, much less the web in general. As we’ve seen with Facebook’s robust privacy settings, you can build the nicest tool in the world to help manage a key function, but it won’t matter if they don’t know it’s there or aren’t able to easily use it.

Ultimately, Facebook should stick to its strengths and not be too enticed by Twitter.  Although status update search is the strongest capability the new search service offers users, Facebook wants to expand the usefulness of its search tool beyond just friends by encouraging people to share with “everyone” more – a goal that’s clear if you look at upcoming changes to the site’s privacy settings. We’re not sure that’s why most people come to Facebook – at least just yet.

Popular blogging platform TypePad has just announced the launch of Facebook Connect integration for TypePad blogs. Although a variety of Facebook Connect plugins for bloggers and wikis has existed for several months, this is the first time TypePad authors have been able to turn on native Facebook Connect support on their blogs.

Now, readers can easily login to TypePad blogs with their Facebook accounts to make comments, share posts through the News Feed, and invite friends to check out the blog. For example, here’s how a shared story looks in the Facebook stream:

Enabling users to easily share breaking news and stories through the Facebook News Feed is an increasingly important requirement for any web publishing platform. The integration with Facebook Connect will help TypePad users save time and spread their message a little more quickly and a little farther.

In addition to the Connect integration, TypePad also recently launched new features letting readers share posts from the iPhone, as well as other tools. More details on the enhancements can be found here.

NBC has become the latest broadcast television network to incorporate Facebook Connect on its website, with a new Connect integration that allows users to share and publish their favorite NBC shows in their Facebook news feeds. This type of simple integration has been successful for other networks given how popular watching TV shows online has become.

Other uses of the Connect app allow users to share their favorite shows, along with comments, on their Facebook walls. While this will surely drive some traffic to NBC’s site, the network is probably hoping on the extra publicity leads to people switching on their TVs to check out the programming during normal time slots.

NBC is also exploring other uses for Facebook, offering a limited-time preview of the new show “Community” through its Facebook Page. You must become a fan of the show to watch, and there are currently a little more than 12,600 fans of the Page. That number is still pretty small, but it’s still an effective way to spread the word of an upcoming show given how many people are being exposed to news of “Community” in their Facebook News Feed.

Online content sites like Vimeo and Joost were among some of the first to launch Facebook Connect apps, and are two of the more successful early Connect partners. TV.com also recenlty added their own Facebook Connect application, and has experienced positive results. It’s tough to compare these apps to NBC’s, as those sites have viewerships comprised completely of online users. But other networks, like CBS, are already using Facebook Connect to cater to online viewers and offer more options for traditional TV viewers, and people are logging on to watch their favorite shows.

Britney Spears is lending her name and image to a new line of virtual gifts available from her Facebook Page and the Facebook home page. Facebook users can give one free gift when they become a fan of Britney, or choose from five other gifts for 20 Facebook Credits, or USD $2 each (most Facebook Gifts normally cost $10 Credits, or USD $1). This is the first time any recording artist has branded virtual gifts. The campaign coincides with Spears’ current Circus world tour.

Britney currently has nearly 2 million Facebook fans, so there’s the potential here for her and Facebook to generate some serious revenue from the virtual gifts (we’re still awaiting word from Facebook on how the revenue split breaks down). Plans are to roll out a new group of gifts each month, with the current gifts representing the best of Britney Spears, past and present. Spears worked with iconographer Susan Kare to develop the gifts, and will continue to offer one free gift to her fans each month.

While this is the first time a high-profile musician has offered branded virtual gifts, several large brands have integrated virtual gifts on their Facebook Pages recently, including Harry Potter and Bud Light. Given how positively the campaigns have gone so far, we expect to see more in the near future. Facebook virtual gifts combined with celebrity appeal could be the next big thing to generate dollars through Facebook.

To dig deeper on engaging your audience through virtual gifts on Facebook, check out our industry leading Facebook Marketing Bible (a special edition for agencies and big brands is also available).

The virtual goods market within social applications and games continues to grow at a torrid pace. And as the market is growing, competition is only getting more fierce. Today, a new company focused on helping European app and game developers monetize through virtual currency is coming out of stealth mode: SponsorPay.

Backed by Team Europe Ventures and headed by Jan Beckers, Berlin-based SponsorPay bills itself as “Europe’s virtual currency monetization platform.” Like many of its North American counterparts, SponsorPay is focusing on helping developers monetize through advertiser-financed virtual currency transactions. Instead of buying virtual currency directly, players can participate in offers or surveys in exchange for in-game currency.

As you would expect, SponsorPay is making big localization efforts. The service is available in localized versions for 14 European countries, and the company has hired country managers focused on specific European markets. Initial customers include Frogster (Runes of Magic), Gamelabs (Gallendor), and Playa Games (Shakes & Fidget).

“There is no  other international industry that is comparable to the online game market. Our customers’ games are often played in more than 50 different countries. That is why we are focusing our technology and structure on growth right from the start. In the near future, we want to serve players in all of Europe and North America in their native languages,” Beckers says.

While major virtual currency players like Super Rewards and Offerpal have been increasingly focusing on localizing their services as well, SponsorPay isn’t the only Europe-focused virtual currency monetization platform we’ve profiled. In April, Tel Aviv-based SupersonicAds came out of stealth mode on Inside Facebook as well.

However, SponsorPay is in great position to pose a significant threat in Europe. With an experienced team, strong investors (Team Europe partners Lukasz Gadowski and Kolja Hebenstreit also backed StudiVZ), and local expertise, it will be very interesting to see how the company and market develop over the next year.

While metrics from other analytics firms say Facebook’s US growth slowed in July, new data just in from comScore actually tells the opposite story. According to comScore, Facebook’s traffic to its main site grew by nearly 14% month over month in July to over 87.7 million US uniques – the highest monthly growth rate Facebook has experienced in the last year. Here’s how the numbers break down:

As you can see, Facebook’s US traffic grew substantially in July – blowing past 80 million monthly uniques all the way to 87.7 million. MySpace stayed roughly flat at 68.3 million uniques, and Twitter continued a steady 5% growth rate to 21.2 million uniques after exploding earlier this year.

The story here, though, is Facebook hitting an all-time high growth rate in the US, according to comScore. It now seems that the redesign earlier this year hasn’t been “disastrous” as some people have claimed – while Facebook is still working on improving the “highlights” section of the home page and perhaps re-integrating it with the real time stream, Facebook’s American audience has continued to expand across the demographic board. (Note, however, that very rapid growth could be masking any retention issues associated with the redesign.)

To zoom in on the social networking growth numbers in more detail, click the chart below:

In the last year, Facebook has grown from half of MySpace’s audience in the US to now being the clear leader in comScore’s “Social Networking” category – and doesn’t show any signs of slowing down yet. Meanwhile, Twitter is sustaining a substantial US audience, but unlike Facebook, Twitter doesn’t require users to have active accounts to view the site. comScore says all reported numbers count only traffic to Facebook’s main site – not Facebook Connect widgets or any other distributed content.

Source: comScore Media Metrix

Back when Facebook first launched Facebook Pages, many businesses and brands who had built up substantial audiences in their Facebook Groups asked Facebook to move their Group members over to their Facebook Page. For example, last year, Facebook converted the Apple Students Sponsored Group to a Facebook Page. (Facebook promoted “Sponsored Groups” back in the day.)

However, now that Facebook Pages have been live for a long time, Facebook has stopped converting Groups to Pages in recent months. Instead, Facebook is offering Group owners the following recommendation:

You’re welcome to create a Page and notify your Group members that you’ll be using the Page instead of the Group going forward. If your Group has too many members to send them a message, we unfortunately aren’t able to provide you with any other solutions for how you might contact them about this change.

In other words, if you’re a business or brand, you shouldn’t be driving users to a Facebook Group any more. For deeper background on why this is the case, see our 4 Reasons Why Marketers Should Choose Facebook Pages Over Facebook Groups. In summary:

1. Pages Allow Marketers to Publish to the Stream
2. Pages Allow Marketers to Engage Fans with Rich Media
3. Pages Let Marketers Analyze How Fans are Interacting with the Insights Dashboard
4. Pages Let Marketers Increase SEO

To dig deeper on marketing through Facebook Pages (as well as other guerilla tactics related to Facebook Groups), check out our industry-leading Facebook Marketing Bible.

Gatorade has teamed up with Wildfire to commemorate Michael Jordan’s induction into the Basketball Hall Of Fame with a new Facebook application on the Gatorade Page which allows users to vote for their favorite MJ moment. The Facebook app is the social media element in the overall campaign launched by Gatorade to promote the induction, which also includes urban art events, television commercials, and commemorative bottles.

What makes this particular element a little different from most others we’ve seen from large brands is that it combines two forms of viral marketing into one: voting and sweepstakes. Wildfire’s Victoria Ransom noted that this approach is a great way to both promote the campaign and the Gatorade Fan Page at the same time.

“By combining a voting campaign with a sweepstakes Gatorade got the best of both worlds — the vote provides a great way for users to express themselves (and thus encourages the publication of news feeds) while the sweepstakes provides a great way to gather leads and valuable customer data.”

The application gives you an opportunity to vote for your favorite moment from some of the defining feats in Jordan’s collegiate and professional career. Favorites are published in the news feed for friends to see, and users are also invited to provide more information to enter for a chance at a trip for two to the induction ceremony.

Brazilians have begun embracing Facebook in big numbers over the last 3 months, and in order to help foster continued growth, Facebook has launched a developers contents in the country. The Facebook Developer Contest – Brazil follows the formula of previous challenges in other countries, with Brazilian developers vying for cash prizes for Facebook Applications and Facebook Connect integrations.

This contest is the latest in the “Build, Engage, Win” series that Facebook has created targeting developers in specific countries, with successful implementation in from France, Spain, Germany and India. It’s also a great way to make inroads towards taking some of the market share currently enjoyed by Orkut, which still has almost 6 times as many monthly users as Facebook.

Facebook’s audience in Brazil has grown ten-fold from a little over 130,000 to more than 1.3 million in the last year, with most of those users coming on board in the last 3 months. However, there’s still a lot of room for continued growth. Brazilian developers who invest time and effort in Facebook should have a large audience as the number of Facebook users in Brazil continues to grow this year.

Facebook said yesterday that a small bug recently appeared in the Developers console that caused some applications to show incorrect total user numbers. However, the stats should be fixed as of today.

It’s worth noting that the total user metric is not outward facing. This metric is different from the Monthly Active Users metric that Facebook publicizes which reports the number of active, engaged users over a 30 day period. The Total Users metric tracks how many individual users have authorized an application overall.