Google and Yahoo! are both continuing their pursuits to become competitive players in the social networking arena. Google recently launched its Buzz product to compete with Facebook and  Twitter.  Buzz pulls content from Google and external sites, allowing its installed Gmail users to update information on Twitter, Flickr and others.  Yahoo! recently announced a new service that will integrate Twitter into many of its products such as Mail and Search.  The company already announced plans to integrate some Facebook functionality with its site.

Yahoo! has focused much of its efforts on its display business while Google is the behemoth in search. How Google  and Yahoo! will monetize these new products remains to be seen, as generating significant ad revenue on social networking sites remains a difficult proposition. The key to success will be the companies’ ability to  use these value-adds to increase traffic to their sites.  The goal is to develop a one-stop-shop which would encourage users to visit a site and remain within that sites’ ecosystem where opportunities to click through search and display ads abounds.