After being one of Google’s top guns, Danish-born Lars Rasmussen leaves the company, and is bound to San Francisco for a stint at Facebook.

In an interview, Rasmussen said, “It feels to me that Facebook may be a sort of once-in-a-decade type of company.” He also mentioned in that same report that his decision to end his six-year stay at the prominent search giant Google was brought about by a “compelling personal pitch” from Facebook patriarch Mark Zuckerberg.

Rasmussen, the man behind Google Maps and Google Wave, quit his present job in Google Australia for social network giant Facebook. These reports have given the public and media with the perception that Facebook is perhaps in quest to develop their group-sharing functionality around locations. On another report, the head of Youtube Australia Kate Vale has also left the organization and hinted to the Sydney Morning Herald that she too could jump into the backyard of the blossoming ventures of Facebook.

Reports also noted a statement from Alan Noble, Google Australia’s engineering director. He gave his full respect and admiration to Rasmussen and said, “Lars made great contributions to Google in innovative products like Google Maps and Google Wave. He was also instrumental in starting engineering in the Google Sydney office. We wish him all the best.”

Rasmussen co-founded the popular Google Map with his brother Jens. After awhile, he then started with the Google Wave project—a social platform that has not lived up to the hype and expectations. It failed to reach mainstream popularity for various reasons and was cancelled early this year. This project that combined instant messaging, email, pictures, conferencing and other multimedia showcase, was unsuccessful in gaining a solid following and fan base.

His experience with real-time collaboration and location awareness will come in handy as Facebook delves into both these areas, especially with its plans for mobile.