Google vs Facebook. Let the contest begin

Wow! What a great time to be in Social Media.

This week saw the launch of the two big players in the Social Media market going head to head. Facebook went first with Facebook connect on the 4th of December followed quickly by Google with Google Friend connect on the same day.

Everybody who signed up for google Friend Connect would have got an email like this:

"We appreciate your interest in Google Friend Connect and would now like to invite you to try the service. You can get started by visiting our homepage and clicking the "Set up a new site" button."

Both are easy to setup and are aimed at sites that want to have a community without the pain of asking for people details. You also gain access to Google and Facebooks existing members, for facebook this is reported to be 130 million and I am sure Google users will be able to match if not beat that with there Application and standard email users.

What does this mean to us?

Does it mean there will be two levels of community? The site community and then the Google/Facebook power community.

Is there a difference in users from Facebook and Google? I see Google as more of a professional user compared to the facebook casual user. Do you agree?

I know one thing. Sites will never be the same again!