In the Google-Facebook race, privacy will determine the winner

In the web industry, imitation is much more than a sincere form of flattery. It's an admission of another's success, and an effort to catch up to the industry leader in hopes of surpassing them.

In social media, Facebook has been the leader everyone imitates for several years. Google tried a few times and came up short. But this month, that changed: Google+ is a formidable social media platform that matches Facebook in many ways and surpasses it in others, like realtime group video chat. Facebook quickly responded with its own video chat service, but couldn't match Google's. This back and forth is likely to continue for some time. A decade ago, Google and Yahoo entered into a similarly intense competition over search. Google eventually won, of course, but anyone using search engines since then has also benefited because that competition advanced search technology very quickly. Web users may benefit from a Facebook-Google rivalry, but for a different reason: The best way for these companies to differentiate their social media offerings is by preserving personal privacy.