I finally thought that Google was making some progress in its aim to get in to the social space with the launch of its +1 button but I’m starting to wonder if it has a bit of a Google Buzz feel about it. The initial launch came nearly 3 months ago when it was announced and starting appearing in search results and coming up on 3 weeks ago when Google announced it would be rolled out to publishers around the web. There has been significant buzz around both launches with many making the comparison with other social network sharing buttons like the Facebook Like button or the Twitter Follow button. Some of the biggest publishers around have also embraced the button (we even added it to our own blog here) and the button appears on Google properties like YouTube under all its videos.
The big question that everybody is starting to wonder though is what does the button do or what purpose does it serve? Even though publishers have embraced it what good is it actually doing and more importantly why would anybody ever click on it? When I click the Facebook Like button, the tweet button or even the Linkedin button I am implicitly sharing that content with my networks and there is a real reason for hitting the button. With the +1 button I actually have no idea why I would click it. If I don’t have any idea and I work in the business what must the average web user be thinking? The general feeling is that people might click on it once or twice out of curiosity but after that you have no real reason to ever click it again. The long term plan is for Google to route all this information through your Google Profile and make all the +1′s useful but nobody is using those profiles and on current form nobody ever will.
So where does Google go from here? Its launch of Google Wave and Google Buzz were both massive pushes in to the social space and both failed spectacularly. Google +1 has had similar hype and just like Buzz has been embraced by publishers but you can see that barely anybody is clicking on the buttons. Does Google have something up it’s sleeve that it will roll out shortly? Will they give us a reason to click the +1 button soon or will it fade away and disappear from sites to be retired to the Google social media graveyard? This really is last chance saloon for Google in the social space so lets hope they have some other layer coming to add on to this pretty soon because time is running out! What do you think? Will it succeed or is it another Google social flop?
it’s certainly starting to feel that way. Unless it can (re)launch the profiles section and make it actually useful to +1 something. It’s buggered.
Certainly very limited number of people click on the +1 button, in which some people don’t even know where they can look it in their Google profiles. Maybe they are clicking it because of all the ‘hype’ +1 created before its launch. Don’t know if its flop or successful, but I am sure it has no comparison with Facebook share button or Twitter share button.
where is the +1 button ? ;)
Can’t see it here on this blog other than a vague greyed-out shape. I can’t see it getting traction unless clicking +1 gives some reward and has some social payback. At the moment, it has neither, so it will rightly fail.
Google need to have a startup attitude about social, or they will fail repeatedly in the social sphere.
What is a +1 button, and who is Google?
Good signals for search ranking are always unintentional exhaust. HTML links, retweets, clicks on search results — all these have a completely independent primary purpose. Google always designs their social systems to serve as a ranking function and this doesn’t work. Impact of actions on search results is too complex and uninteresting for most users.
Umm.. “this is pretty cool” but perhaps a bit delayed. 7 years late to be precise which is when Digg was launched. This should be “pretty cool ” for its search results but whats the incentive for users to participate ?
The problem with Google’s attitude to social is that they don’t understand ‘friends’. They think friends are people that you already have….when the internet is all about friends you don’t have and probably will never want to have. It’s disposable. Its a form of entertainment, a source of news. Mainstream Social networks are about exploring people without commitment in a way that is impossible with real friendships through a kind of voyeurism. Look at twitter, initially anonymous…..allows the user to dip the foot in the water, their identity is irrelevant.
Google are approaching the social scene as if friends are a team that needs project managing. This is certainly the most valuble kind of friendship and a viable model for getting things done, but most people out there are on the internet because the real world and real friends aren’t working out….the want more stimulation for less investment.
If Google want to go mainstream with social they need be be less literal and start encouraging mass friending. They need to start working with the degrees of separation and introducing strangers to strangers, just like a good host at a party. It is actually very hard to FIND friends on buzz, etc.
The + 1 button can not work if people don’t go to the place the info is collected. They are only going to go to the place is being collective if there is a social incentive. We are talking: love, sex, career progression, an audience…..basically something they haven’t got. This is why people join social networks.
The slowly slowl approach may pay off in the long term because I don’t see sites like facebook and twitter lasting. Many of these communities are not real built on a insincerity that wears off. They seem to go through a cycle of early adoption golden period > mainstream > spam…..on top of this I think a type of tourism is beinging in the web where people are beginning to to see websites as locations that need to vary….the variety is a function in iself beyond the specific communication function….this would indicate that scocial media needs to be brouser based not taking place in specific web locations….see chrome extensions.
For now I think Google should not attempt to throw wild parties but it should get out of the library once in a while and have the occasional barbecue.
@David Petherick ‘startup’ is exact right. Buzz doesn’t have it’s own platform….just gets lost in Gmail. The two should be synced, don’t get me wrong, but is any teen want to see this: http://prntscr.com/232rw
You dont even have a google +1 button on here for people to press, how do you know its a flop?
Google need to get a high school student and watch them try to use buzz.
For one you are wrong about no one ever going to use Google profiles. Wait until they integrated into all of Google properties, YouTube, Groups, Blogger, it all coming.
An I was looking for a +1 button here so where is does become successful I could easily track this post down ad boast how I was right and the author was wrong. I do not see it.
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Mate, watch this space as Google’s social strategy is about to be launched probably in the next few days or coming week…
http://www.supershops.org
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@Richard Frost I should hope so Richard. What I find annoying is that the solution is doing things in a normal manner by following a well proven model. Having a webpage for buzz for example! Currently if I type in buzz, I see a landing page, then I have to go to Gmail, then I have to set up gmail, then I have to remember I was actually installing buzz, then I have to find the buzz inbox, nothing happening there, then there is this google profile thing with the initial page that isn’t buzz related, so I toggle to Buzz, then where’s the content? Oh I have to add content first, then I get some friends there, but there’s still no content because non of my friends are on buzz, or gmail or profiles or whatever this is. So I wait…. ….. ….
All they need is a dedicated website and a steam of info to jump into right from the start within *3* clicks. Isn’t that a golden rule of attention spans or something. *Bam Bam Bam Bored*
I believe …just frustrating.
OOOPS!
I absolutely love the +1 button
I’ve started the rant so I’ll finish it:) I’ve just been reading the sister article on this site that discusses the possibility of a new social offering by Google called ‘circles’.
I’ve highlighted in the link what I see as the institutional misunderstanding of social, which I DO agree with in principle, and as a long LONG temp plan just not as a solution the the ‘success now’ problem.
highlighted: http://prntscr.com/237hw
original [article here: http://bit.ly/mnfd8C
My reading of the terminology used:
The word ‘circle’ = closed
Admitadly there is more than one circle being discussed – so really it’s going the be more like a ‘Venn diagram’.
‘…the most appropriate contacts…’ = so contact’s I already have? Certainly no American men pretending to be Syrian lesbians, that created all the GOSSIP last week.
‘…not in bulk’ = bulk is almost interchangeable for mainstream
‘ tip of the iceberg’ = ? We HAVE an iceburge….it’s underwater!
‘Martin’s getting angry’ *wanders off*
http://www.supershops.org
tynb
Google can’t do social media. PERIOD. They can only uphold something that wasn’t there’s- YouTube. But that’s soon to leave. Twitter and Facebook are huge and now have video features, so its only a matter of time till YouTube fades. Then google will have no social networking project. They are a great company, but suck at social media. They should just stick to google search, maps, and android. Those will take them farther. But because it’s "google" I think people are
Kinda afraid to use them. I mean, they already know everything about you… So why join their "social-ness" anyways?
Well, they could certainly sell this to advertisers of gmail users. Things that got “plus one’d” would appear more prominently next to inboxes, perhaps?
HAHAHA funny to read this now…. it makes sense now does it ;-)
@Richard Frost hahahaha how do YOU know lol
I think Google was in such a hurry to push it out – they figured they would fix it in process. Problem is – with a potential of this +1 having an impact on your site ranking, can’t ignore it. However poorly it is currently implemented.
I ut one on my blog and I guess just have to sit and wait on how it plays out.