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The Google +1 Button - Google Goes Social (Search) vs. Facebook Like
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Google announced today its +1 Button. Along with other features such as the recent Personal Blocklist Extension for Chrome, Google is clearly going social. Facebook's Like Button is a strong competitor, as Facebook argues that search is social. But is it? Time will tell. Here's the scoop.
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By Jason McDonald
Senior SEO Instructor - JM Internet Group.
Posted: March 30, 2011
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Contents:
+1 Button: Google Search Goes Social
Search is going social. In the old world, circa 2010, search was a lonely individual activity. But along came Facebook, and Facebook began to terrify Google. Like Austin Powers, Google began to fear it had lost its mojo. Facebook was the cool kid on the block and - gasp - Google was Microsoft. The recent power shakeup at the top of Google only belies that the twenty one year old company is having a midlife crisis. Is Google relevant anymore in a world of Twitter and Facebook?
Google doesn't want that answer to be negative. So Google is showing signs of investing heavily in social search. The first crack was the Chrome block extension. But the new really big announcement came today: the +1 button. From the little available today, the +1 button appears to do two things -
- Let you mark search results thumbs up or thumbs down. (Oh oops that's TIVO). So you can just +1 them on Google.
- Let other Google users see them in the aggregate - so now we will be voting on search results.
- Let you and others +1 websites, just as we today Like them via Facebook.
OK, that's three things. But this is a blog post and I am writing fast. Cut me a break. You can read more about it all here, The Google +1 Button.
It's always easy to see the negatives, especially after spectacular failures such as Google Buzz LOL, remember Buzz?. The big issues I see are first, many people are not logged into Google accounts, and two the Google account system is just plain difficult to use. The user interface is completely terrible vs. easy-to-use systems like Yelp or Facebook. None of this will work, Google, unless you make it easier for users to see their Google profiles and (more importantly) you give us a reason to care, like we have on Facebook, or LinkedIn. Without a strong profile system, this won't really work.
Is Search Really Social?
Is search really social? Well, like all big questions in life, the answer is YES and NO. Some searches are social... Where did you get that cool purse? Oh Man, your new Lexus is to die for. Other searches, like your search for hemorrhoid cremes, is not going to be really shareable... And other searches which might ideally have a social component such as for cars or hair care products, might not in a practical sense. Do you really want to know, or consult with your friends on every minor detail of your life?
Other searches, such as a great important new article in the New York Times might be heavily social, however. So some searches are clearly going to be more social than others, and some not so much.
But for something to take off like this, it has to have a compelling reason, a 10x improvement... and I'm not sure I see it. On Google search results, for example, there's a catch 22. You are searching because you do NOT KNOW... so how are you in a position to evaluate / grade the results? And, once you find what you are looking for, you leave Google and go to your destination. So few users will backtrack - in my opinion - to rate websites on the Google search page.
Google is a search engine - we search, and LEAVE. That is a fundamental difference from Facebook, where we HANG OUT.
But Mark Zuckerberg's vision of EVERYTHING being social can be just as annoying. That guy thinks all we do in life is consult our friends... Which isn't true, especially once we outgrow puberty. So the open question becomes which searches will become social and which will not be (Number one), and more interestingly, can Google (or Facebook) really harness the wisdom of crowds for us to VOTE on which websites are more valuable? The diminishing use of links is an Achilles heel for Google.
Facebook's Like Button
Imitation, they say, is the highest form of flattery, and the Google +1 Button is clearly the latest indication of how much Google is playing catch up to Facebook. I have long suspected that it is Facebook (and not BING!) that keeps Google up at night.
If you have a website you can find out more about the Facebook Like Button and install that one on your website too. The downside there is your users have to be logged into Facebook to vote, so you will get only a fraction of people doing that. And there isn't really an incentive for users to vote...
So both giants need to create a compelling reason for searches to Like or +1 pages, and compelling viral loop to make these products grow. Without them, search will remain a lonely endeavor.
Ironically if you Google the loneliest number on Google, the answer is 1.
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