First, how does Google +1 work?
Simple. You search, on Google. if you like a search result, you get an option to demonstrate that liking; click it and it’ll add the +1 next to that result. It also seems that this sharing will reflect in the search result of my friends if they are searching for something similar.
Beyond comparing this with Facebook’s ‘Like’ (that was first used online by Vimeo, anyway), here’s why I think +1 is yet another failed social attempt by Google.
1. Search is a need; not a want.
Search for information is a means to an end. You need something, you search for it and you possibly get it. This is a clinical process, in essence. Take for instance, phone-based yellow pages services – you call them seeking a number, you get it and move on. If they ask you to rate that service for which you got the phone number, you’d consider it as a spammy waste of your time. The point of they asking you to rate the service is part of the next point, incidentally.
2. How we use search engines
Extending the phone-based yellow pages example. If, by chance, they ask you to rate the restaurant that you sought the number for, beyond alleging waste of time, you could also holler back, ‘But I haven’t even dined there yet! I just got its number!’. Same thing on Google. You search, you get results and you view results. Do you go back to the search results page to interact with the results page? I’m not so sure! I even open multiple links in new tabs, but seldom go back to the search results tab – that page is just a conduit.
3. Is +1 merely a visualization of a click?
Is it? I mean, your clicking on a link means you may be interested in that page for some reason – it shows intent in knowing more but not necessarily whether you like that link or not. In a way, much like Twitter’s ‘Favorites’ – my favoriting a tweet may not mean I like that tweet or the link in that tweet. But it does mean I wanted to engage with it more, or perhaps at a later time period (I use Favorites in Twitter like a bookmark service). So, is Google merely trying to visualize a click? The only reason why it may be doing it in an obviously visual way is to make it seem social, if you’re logged in to your Google profile. But even that social layer falls apart – why? Next point.
4. Where is my Google network?
I don’t have a Google network. Not yet. I have a Linkedin network. One on Facebook. A couple of them on Twitter. But not on Google, whatever Google may say citing the Buzz network that is thrust upon me. I have many friends on Twitter and Facebook with whom I don’t use Gmail to communicate! So, who exactly are my +1 recommendations being shared with? Google’s answer? This. Not convincing. Why? Because of this. If it was just a matter of using the +1s as yet another way to bolster search relevancy (to complement pagerank), then there’s no need of the facade to get users to login and talking about sharing it with friends. Just IP-based click tracking would do.
To sum up, this seems like yet another desperate attempt by Google to try social. It is strange that a company that gets a lot of things right in many ways still delivers so many duds when it comes to social. But again, even Facebook, the darling of everything-social on the web only started right – they got the basic platform right; but everything they built on it after getting a basic critical mass has been intrusive and at the cost of users’ privacy. We have just learnt to live with it over time.
It is true that Google knows a LOT about me (and all its users). But then, even a stalker would know a lot of information about me if he (ok, she!) had been stalking me for a long enough period of time. So, can a stalker join my social circle just by knowing a lot about me? Of course not! It’s time for Google to stop using the stalking route to go social.