Facebook Names Google, Twitter, Microsoft as Major Rivals

Facebook entered the big leagues yesterday , and listed some other tech heavyweights as its major competitors: Google, Microsoft, and Twitter.

But Facebook is also competing for ad dollars and fending off the rise of smaller social networks, the company said.

"We face significant competition in almost every aspect of our business, including from companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Twitter, which offer a variety of Internet products, services, content, and online advertising offerings, as well as from mobile companies and smaller Internet companies that offer products and services that may compete with specific Facebook features," Facebook said in a Wednesday filing with the SEC.

Facebook acknowledged that it has its eye on Google's nascent Google+ network. "We compete broadly with Google's social networking offerings, including , which it has integrated with certain... products, including search and Android," Facebook said.

Google+ lags behind Facebook with 90 million members to Facebook's 845 million, but has seen strong gains since it opened to the public late last year.

Facebook said some of its rivals "have significantly greater resources and better competitive positions in certain markets than we do," a bucket into which Google falls.

"Certain competitors, including Google, could use strong or dominant positions in one or more markets to gain competitive advantage against us in areas where we operate including: by integrating competing social networking platforms or features into products they control such as search engines, web browsers, or mobile device operating systems; by making acquisitions; or by making access to Facebook more difficult," Facebook said. "As a result, our competitors may acquire and engage users at the expense of the growth or engagement of our user base, which may negatively affect our business and financial results."

Facebook is also monitoring regional social networks like Cyworld in Korea, Mixi in Japan, Google-owned Orkut in Brazil and India, and vKontakte in Russia. "As other companies introduce new products and services, we may become subject to additional competition," the company said.

Facebook is not yet available in China, but it could face competition from Chinese services like Renren, Sina, and Tencent "in the event that we are able to access the market in China in the future."

Facebook did not go into specific detail about the competitive pressures it faces from Twitter and Microsoft.

On the business side, "we also face competition from traditional and online media businesses for a share of advertisers' budgets and in the development of the tools and systems for managing and optimizing advertising campaigns," Facebook said.

The company said it has now has , but is not yet making any money there because it does not serve up ads on mobile.

For more, see and , as well as the Facebook history slideshow below.