Google has jumped into the Social Media craze with its new
+1 button. Google claims that this button, which you first need to have a
Google Public Profile to use, is it's version of "this is pretty cool, you should check it out". In other words, people that you have connected with could +1 a site and you would see their recommendation, or vice versa. You can also choose to have your recommendations be made public, so that even strangers will know that you like a website when it comes up on their search results page. Below is an example of my Google public profile page with my list of +1s (note that apparently Google is not very good at extracting thumbnail images yet):
The way it works is that now when you do a search on Google, the results page will show the +1 status below each result. In this example you can see that it shows my own website and how I have +1'd several of its pages.
What does this mean and how is it different than other Social Media recommendation features, such as the Facebook "Like" button? Well, first off it's Google, second it's Google and oh, third it's Google. Being the number one search engine and having a heck of a lot of user's defaulting their browser's home page to your website is a bit more powerful than giving users the ability to see a "Liked" page on a friends Facebook wall. However, it will only be as successful as the people who use it, and right now that is not very many. I personally believe that it will continue to grow, and we'll start to see all of our favorite websites adding the +1 button next to their Facebook and Twitter buttons (which reminds me...).
But, there are those who would disagree with this analysis, those who are actually annoyed by having Social Media infringe on what should be neutral ground. What do you think?
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