Facebook awkwardly attempts to smear Google

In a move as awkward as you'd expect from the organization that invented virtual poking, Facebook recently hired a top PR firm to pitch anti-Google stories to local newspapers.

Burson-Marsteller, the firm that Facebook hired, urged newspapers to investigate claims that Google was invaded users' privacy, which is pretty hypocritical coming from Facebook, a company that routinely makes headlines for dicking around with your account's privacy settings. Burson-Marsteller was ratted out by a blogger they attempted to hire, who instead posted the emails they attempted to ply him with.

Google, as it turns out, views Facebook as a threat, and by launching its own social-networking system, called Social Circle, has raised its own profile on Facebook's radar. It's interesting, but just a game. Facebook is not likely to beat out Google as a search engine any time soon (although, it is gaining ground in that realm), and Social Circle is obviously not the new Facebook. It's just a way for the two big giants of the internet to poke at each other. 

And then, apparently, whisper mean things about each other around the playground. Regardless, Google's net worth is currently around $190 billion, and Facebook's is $84 billion. Both are doing just fine.