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With +1, Google Search Goes Truly Social — As Do Google Ads

170 points| susanhi | 15 years ago |techcrunch.com | reply

107 comments

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[+] jjcm|15 years ago|reply
It's an interesting way of arranging a link aggregator, in that the links are already present. That said, I don't see this taking off. People compartmentalize their life based on functionality. Some will see google only as a search tool, digg/reddit/hn/slashdot/etc as their social news site, gmail/hotmail/etc as their mailing client - and wont use those products for anything other than their mentally compartmentalized purpose.

The other issue that I see here is the culture that is present. Think of everyone that uses google - do you want all of their votes to influence the content that you see? I don't want to see the eggplant tofurduken recipe that Aunt Millie +1'd. Sure, you can limit the influence to just your circle of friends, but that doesn't bring much new to the table. Reddit has done well because it allows for this context of culture to be one of it's primary features (via subreddits). Even HN has this driving niche focus sitewide.

All that said, while I dont expect this to take off, I do expect to see a "+1 THIS!" button next to the "tweet this!"/"digg this!"/"reddit this!" button on every blogspam post out there.

[+] dannyr|15 years ago|reply
If this will be the final product of "+1", I'd agree with you that it probably won't take off.

Google, however, has been taking it methodically slow on social (and geo-location too). This is probably just a small piece of what they envision it to be. This is in contrast to the big, complicated launch of Google Wave.

I'm holding my judgement for now. I'm excited to see what Google comes up with next.

[+] zmmmmm|15 years ago|reply
> I don't want to see the eggplant tofurduken recipe that Aunt Millie +1'd.

I agree with you mostly, but I think you're slightly missing the point in this bit. Suppose you had searched for "eggplant tofurduken recipe" and the result that Aunt Millie +1'd happened to be shown - would you appreciate knowing that she had looked at the same page and approved it? I know I would.

I think people are reading a bit too much into this as if it's now going to have a huge influence on Google's search results, taking precedence over the actual search terms. I think it's actually going to be far more incremental than that.

[+] MatthewPhillips|15 years ago|reply
I agree 1000% that people compartmentalize based on functionality, which is why Google shouldn't be afraid of Facebook on search (that and Facebook not having search and search being difficult).
[+] kin|15 years ago|reply
> All that said, while I dont expect this to take off, I do expect to see a "+1 THIS!" button next to the "tweet this!"/"digg this!"/"reddit this!" button on every blogspam post out there.

Agreeing with you here, not to mention I would typically +1 something after clicking on the link and reading it. This current UX has me either knowing something is worthy of a +1 before reading it or reading it, pressing the back button, then clicking the +1. A +1 THIS next to tweet/digg/like makes sense.

[+] currywurst|15 years ago|reply
Beautifully said, especially about Aunt Millie. Limiting the influence to your contacts should be the default setting. If some people are more adventurous, then they can jump in.
[+] markkat|15 years ago|reply
Someone should make a +1 function with a GRE question as a captcha.

A web for the rest of us!

[+] shadowsun7|15 years ago|reply
The obvious: I'm sure it won't be long before Google creates an embeddable +1 button, for you to include in your site/blog/webapp. Because right now I don't see why I would run a search, click the result, go 'whoah, good article' and then hit back to the results page to '+1' aforementioned article.

What I really like about this, though, is that it sounds so good.

"I'd +1 that."

"Have you +1ed?"

"Where's the essay? Uh, it's in my +1s"

[+] cyanbane|15 years ago|reply
I don't see anything that would keep them from moving this to the gtoolbar, Chrome or a javascriptlet.

I agree with the branding of it. I doubt I will use it much, but it is catchy.

[+] metageek|15 years ago|reply
And they could add a +1 button to Chrome.
[+] herval|15 years ago|reply
do you really find "have you plus-oned it?" catchy? or are you just being sarcastic? (I'd go the sarcastic route, imho it sounds terrible)
[+] narrator|15 years ago|reply
I see hundreds of thousands of billable hours of mechanical turk and dungeon grade Indian and Chinese IT Services time spent +1ing SEO spam farm links.
[+] Groxx|15 years ago|reply
As PageRank is a trust metric, and their entire system is based around that, I'd imagine they would perform similar calculations for +1 results. Especially as +1s contain no implicit content, as they are merely flags, I find it unlikely to suffer from SEO like search does - trust metrics are practically designed to handle farming.
[+] eurokc98|15 years ago|reply
Agree, though reputation rank may mitigate some of this behavior when implemented. The urls +1 profile distribution may end up looking like a typical back link profile and something most SEOs should try and balance.
[+] minalecs|15 years ago|reply
Google actually played around with a voting feature awhile back. When you searched for a term, there was an up arrow on the results, so it moved those results to the top every time you searched for those terms. This was incredible useful for me, because for example I was too lazy to bookmark api documentation and just search for example rails api, and the links I voted up were automatically at the top. If this works like this I will be happy, the social aspect I don't care for, but can see how it will be relevant if enough people are voting for good content.. thats associated with specific search terms.
[+] rexf|15 years ago|reply
Possible unintuitive user experience?

Google's usage comes from leaving Google's site as fast as possible (search for a term, then leave Google to visit the result).

This looks like you would do a search, visit the resulting site, and then remember to go back to the Google results page to click the +1.

[+] sahaj|15 years ago|reply
If the website you are visiting also integrates +1, then there is no need to go back and +1.

But yeah, going back to the Google search results page is a pain and I doubt very many people would actually take that action, unless they are really impressed by the site and are familiar with the +1 feature.

[+] MrJagil|15 years ago|reply
4chan already regularly troll google search results by mass-searching for a specific, disturbing sentence. This seems like another tool in their arsenal.

Not saying Google should let bullies dictate their behaviour, but this _could_ be abused.

[+] OstiaAntica|15 years ago|reply
I bet the SEO underworld is also going bananas with the potential to game the system.
[+] sahaj|15 years ago|reply
If none of the 4chan users are my friends, I won't see anything from them. I think this is actually not a problem.
[+] pathik|15 years ago|reply
'+1' proves that Google is run by engineers.

I, for one, prefer it to 'Like' or 'Tweet'.

[+] Kylekramer|15 years ago|reply
It can have a nerdy connotation, but +1 is pretty well known. The average person probably sees it in the party invite/club culture context where you vouch for one person, much like you'll be vouching for sites.

Probably not better than Like, but definitely not worse than Tweet.

Edit: And the ultimate arbitrator of slang agrees: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=plus%20one

[+] theBobMcCormick|15 years ago|reply
I'll agree that 'Like' is more natural than +1, but 'Tweet'?!?

Not only does 'Tweet' not have the natural connotation of 'Like' or '+1', but it sounds positively dorky to say.

But of course 'Tweeting' is incredibly popular, which I guess just goes to show that sometimes it's better to use a weird word that initially sounds like nonsense. :-)

[+] mduvall|15 years ago|reply
Maybe ++ would be engineer-ish, but I think that "+1" gives a better connotation of contributing to a greater social whole rather than seeming like just another bookmarked page.
[+] SoftwareMaven|15 years ago|reply
I'd rather see a "-1"; so when I go back to the results because the result didn't match my need, I could indicate it (w/o a full ban). I'm not likely to ever return for a +1 result, since, almost by definition, I'm done searching at that point.
[+] Matt_Cutts|15 years ago|reply
There's not a "-1 button" but you can block search results in a couple ways:

- Install the Personal Blocklist extension in Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nolijncfnkgaikbjbd...

- Click on a search result, then click back, and you'll see a "block example.com" for that snippet.

The first option is easy and always shows block links; the second option is server-side, so the blocks work on different browsers.

[+] brown9-2|15 years ago|reply
Maybe I'm missing something, but what benefit do I get as a user out of +1-ing something?
[+] s3graham|15 years ago|reply
Bookmark-ish functionality I guess?

Maybe you could pretend it's a microtransaction gift to the receiver, which it probably is in some vague way.

[+] nevinera|15 years ago|reply
I have a strong suspicion that `+1`s you give out would affect your search results at least as much as would those of your friends.
[+] Hominem|15 years ago|reply
I got a few downvotes last week saying google needed exactly this to fend off Facebook constructing a search engine based on it's like button data.

This goes a long way but the problem I see here is that I want to be able to +1 on the page itself, not have to click back to the search results, find the result again, and then press +1.

[+] bretthopper|15 years ago|reply
"So they’re taking it slow. There will be no +1 buttons for publishers at launch (but they’re coming)."
[+] erik_p|15 years ago|reply
I wish they would add a -1 button
[+] magicalist|15 years ago|reply
they do: "block all example.com results" or whatever. it's just not shared (yet?)
[+] MatthewPhillips|15 years ago|reply
Anyone else having flashbacks to Yahoo in 1996:

http://web.archive.org/web/19961017235908/http://www2.yahoo....

And then in 2006:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060101035628/http://www.yahoo.c...

? Google has featuritis.

[+] TillE|15 years ago|reply
They do seem to be adding a little too much to the search engine itself. I just noticed that they've finally hidden "realtime results" behind a link you have to click, instead of shoving random idiotic Twitter crap in your face when you search for current topics.

There's an idea that had some potential, but seems to have made no progress since its debut. It's still no better than a simple Twitter search.

Google seems a little too eager to adopt random crazy ideas (SearchWiki) and a little too willing to kill off good ideas that don't take off quickly enough (Wave). I can't think of a recent new feature or product that was a big success, which is disappointing.

[+] sahaj|15 years ago|reply
This seems like a defensive move on Google's part. I imagine there are talks inside Facebook to either develop their own search or work with another search provider to integrate Facebook into the results. I am not sure how widely this feature will be used but, in my opinion, it is definitely the right move.
[+] gdulli|15 years ago|reply
I don't find this very useful. My friends often like things that I don't like. They're not my friends because they like the bands or movies or web sites that I do. Recommendations from my friends carry no more weight than they would from anyone else.

The only difference between a friend and a stranger is that I might engage a friend in a conversation with specific questions about something they've used or seen that I haven't, but the value of that conversation comes from the detail of the exchange and targeted or objective questions I'd ask, it's not expressible as a boolean like/+1 or a 1-10 rating.

[+] random42|15 years ago|reply
Oh look, Google's very own "like" button.

Lets see how well they do with it.

[+] yesimahuman|15 years ago|reply
This might sound dumb, but it's not really obvious how I add people I know to my google profile as a "friend". With facebook, it's dead simple and it makes sense why you would do that.

I assume I have to connect an account here: https://profiles.google.com/connectedaccounts

But then don't my friends have to do that as well? I don't really see why they would.

[+] dman|15 years ago|reply
To jumpstart user identities in googles take on social google could buy communities like github, photo.net and import user identities from there. Of course the privacy and the UX of such a move will dictate whether users go "wow this is great" or "oh my god now the whole internet knows about my tinfoil hat". In the meanwhile they could try to integrate identities from services that google already owns - youtube, picasa, google reader etc.