A lot of speculation has come and passed regarding upcoming Facebook features which will bring it closer in competition with Google. While I try not speculate on rumors, I honestly believe that there lies only one area where Google and Facebook will heavily compete in the future, the operating system.

This, in my opinion, is a comparison of both parties most utilized features. As a compelling counter argument, it’s clear Facebook and Google share very similar assets such as chat. And while Google offers video chat and phone support, who’s to say Facebook won’t begin offering similar services? Despite these similarities though, they remain two very separate beasts. One a work horse, the other a fun house.

To clarify, most of us are familiar with Google Apps as a cloud based enterprise/personal solution. Google Docs, Google Mail, Calendar, etc. Picasa and YouTube, while social, are merely an inbox for your content. It’s troubling when Google approaches social, just think Buzz, and it’s unfortunate that currently Facebook only offers chat and messaging as private means of communication. And while some may argue there can only be one winner, both companies have concurrently been wildly successful while staying relevant.

Where They Will Face Off

Google or Facebook’s ultimate success will be a race to the bottom. It will be a quest to find level ground to rebuild your social computing standards from. Why focus on the web, when companies like Google or Facebook can control your entire computing experience?

Google has a head start with their browser Chrome. By making it easier, safer and faster to browse and search the web, people are becoming increasingly comfortable with relying more on the web thanks to desktop class webapps. It’s the first step to bridging people’s digital lives with their software lives. And fortunately for Google, they’ve already announced the next step, Chrome OS.

The race to the bottom now becomes a race to find the earliest point at which a user will begin utilizing your services. No longer will it be traditional login systems that have absolutely no ties to your actual intentions between software and the web. Instead hardware and software will meet your social and search life. And if this is a place for any company to prove themselves, this is where Facebook should be looking to go. And why, if anything, Microsoft should be cowering.

Why Facebook?

While Google has ruled the way we interact with the web, Facebook has come to rule what we do on the web. For Facebook’s 500 million+ users that have already learned to rely on Facebook to chat or share & discuss content, it’ll be an easier transition away from stagnant operating systems to lighter, mobile ones that integrate well with what we naturally do everyday on our computers.

I, like many others, have already begun adopting alternate operating systems into my day to day work flow. Mostly mobile based thanks to Android and iOS, I’m becoming more and more dependent on lighter applications that gather their data from the web. So while many may argue and consider Chrome OS to be another mobile operating system, it still begins the cycle of bridging computer hardware with a solely web based interface.

Facebook’s transition to mobile apps has also helped shape the perception of Facebook away from just being a web destination and more into a portal. Having actual software that integrates with where you are, your pictures, your likes & dislikes is the first step to having users depend on it as a jumping off point.

Both Facebook and Google have already done a great job connecting services and partnering with other sites to allow their users single sign-on. Having application support both in Facebook and soon to be in Chrome’s web store, makes it easier to integrate feature rich products into your social graph, again pushing you further away from traditional desktop environments.

So while Facebook may still be in its web infancy, it shouldn’t take long for it to mature into a completely autonomous environment for your physical and digital content to thrive in. And just as Aol became our first platform for the web, Facebook can introduce a whole new generation to the web based operating system, unless of course Google can get there first.