Is Google Really Going To Go After Facebook? (GOOG)

Normally a company shakes up management when it's underperforming, as was the case at

. So why did Google

do it

After reporting blow out earnings yesterday that beat Wall Street estimates, Google announced that CEO Eric Schmidt would be stepping down as of April 4, and co-founder Larry Page would become CEO of the company. Schmidt will become Executive Chairman of Google, and focus on larger initiatives, such as government relationships, and cooperating with other companies. What's interesting is that Schmidt has overseen Google since before the company went public, and has taken the company from just a search engine, to a multitude of different things. It is a tech titan, of the likes the world has very few of. What was even more interesting is Schmidt's tweet after the announcement, "Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed!" Yesterday, Google reported earnings of $8.75 per share on revenues of $6.37 billion, handily topping Wall Street estimates of $8.01 per share on revenues of $6.06 billion. Many are speculating that by naming Page CEO, that Google is going to go after Facebook in the social networking space. Google already has forays into the space, including Youtube, but its last effort, Google Buzz, was a huge flop. Schmidt has said that it's not a reaction to competitors, but many other believe differently. UBS analyst Brian Pitz thinks differently. "The Street will think it's a negative, that there is probably some issue going on. Google is trying to get more efficient and trying to get a tech guy in the seat to compete with Facebook," said Pitz. "I don't think it changes anything strategically where the company is headed." "As Google has grown, managing the business has become more complicated. So Larry, Sergey and I have been talking for a long time about how best to simplify our management structure and speed up decision making," Schmidt said in a posting on the company's official blog. "And over the holidays we decided now was the right moment to make some changes to the way we are structured." If Google can successfully compete with Facebook, or Groupon, as it is

these are potentially huge new sources of revenue worth billions of dollars, which would make Google potentially undervalued here. Groupon is worth $15 billion (roughly speaking), and if Google can capture a quarter of that market, due to its marketing muscle and sheer size, then this is another few billion in revenue it can add to its coffers. As far as Facebook goes, there is no telling what direction Google is going to go into to

with the social networking giant. If it can manage to even gain some kind of traction and receive some of those advertising dollars, then chalk other up another one for Brin and Page. Disclosure: no position in names mentioned