The competition between Google+ and Facebook continues to escalate and not just in a friendly sense. Earlier this month, Fueled reported on the arrival of Google+ as well as Mark Zuckerburg’s initial reactions to it, but in light of recent events, we thought an update was in order.

Back and Forth

As MG Siegler reports for TechCrunch, “Google and Facebook have long been in the midst of a war of words (and data) over open access to information. Now Google is apparently blocking a Facebook employee from publishing a book he wrote. Interesting.” Siegler is referring to the latest news in which Google is preventing Paul Adams, former Google Senior UX Researcher turned Facebook convert, from publishing a book entitled “Social Circles” that details his research and findings on the concept of separate social circles online. Adams, who is thought to be the source behind Google+’s “Circles,” gained permission by Google to publish the book in June 2010. The company has since then revoked its permission, stating that he could publish when Google+ launched, but they have not held true to this. Adams is not the only former Google employee at Facebook. As reported by Barbara Ortutay for the Houston Chronicle,

“Facebook also has successfully lured scores of Google's engineers and executives, a key reason Google gave its staff a 10 percent raise this year.”

Facebook doesn’t seem to be taking competitor Google+'s new advances kindly. Google+’s Michael Lee Johnson, a web developer running an ad for his Google+ page on Facebook, got a little slap on the wrist when Facebook pulled the ad completely. According to TechCrunch, “Lee Johnson writes on Google+: ‘I recently ran a Google+ advertisement on Facebook that got all of my campaigns suspended. – Great.’”

Aside from these in-house issues,  Josh Halliday from The Guardian reports, “Facebook has been caught secretly paying a top public relations firm to plant negative stories about Google in the US media.” Facebook was outed when they approached a blogger who declined and instead publicized his e-mail exchange with a Burson-Marsteller representative. Halliday states, “The explosive revelation – which will seriously damage relations between the two technology giants, already bitter rivals – came to light in leaked e-mails.” Facebook has defended its actions, saying it just wanted to bring public information to light. Google has not responded.

Conclusion

Google+’s Business Profiles are expected to revolutionize Facebook Pages concept and its 10 person video-chat Hangouts is 5 times the fun of Facebook’s one on one Skype calls. It’s live stream is likely to compete with Twitter as well. However while Google+ (beta version) may more acclaim for its improvements on Facebook’s flaws, jokes are made that the only way to find people to add on Google+ will be to look through your Facebook friends.   While these two social media giants battle it out, the decision is really up to the users. Which social network will you choose?