According to a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal [a paid publication], there is some frustration among loyal Facebook users. In the web site's search for monetization, there are some new features that do things like track user behavior off of Facebook.com. The hope is that this will help to create improved targeting for advertising messages.

But, it's also raising some privacy concerns.

So, might this be an opening for Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) to get a bigger piece of the social networking space?

Well, I had a chance to interview Robb Hecht, who is an expert on social networking and the operator of MEDIA 2.0. Hecht -- who doesn't consult for either company -- thinks that Google's new system – called OpenSocial – has lots of promise and could be an edge in the social networking war:

"With strategic chess like moves each month including Facebook receiving cash infusion from Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), launching both a challenger service to Google's AdSense called SocialAds as well as opening up its API programmer language to the world, Google has strongly answered back to Facebook in the social networking wars by attempting to channel the future social networking boom, by releasing technical specs with broader adoption for other Internet companies to easily follow/host/implement across several prominent social networks.

"With agreeing networks of the Google APIs accepting to return data (profile info, social graph info, activities) to the Google apps, Google's OpenSocial gives the company more profile information on users to deliver targeted brand advertising messages. This puts the current social advantage in Google's favor, for Facebook code is unusable outside of Facebook's 'walled garden' platform. And, as Google continues to recruit more participants, the reach of its OpenSocial apps could potentially reach several hundred million more users quickly as adoption grows and become standardized. Google's move is very strategic and global in nature."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.