The Google +1 button: 5 things you need to know

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Google is taking on Facebook with a Like button of its own. The plusone button launched yesterday will be rolled out across all Google search results and will allow your friends

1) It’s a little button with a +1 on it that pops up next to search results. Click on it to recommend something you like.

2) Yes, it is like a Facebook Like button. It provides social context to stuff on the web -say your friend Tom +1s a search engine result for a hotel in Barcelona, you’ll see his recommendation when you search for hotels in Barcelona.

3) It uses your Google identity to work out a) your name, b) your friends. Your friends are the same as your contacts in Gmail’s G-chat. You will need to be signed into Gmail or Youtube for this to work. But lets face it – you probably already are.

4) The +1 button might do better than the Facebook Like button because it’s lower impact. My friends will only get my opinions on Spanish hotels when they are searching for Spanish hotels, therefore I’ll be more likely to recommend more things because it will only pop up when it’s useful to them.

5) Third party websites will be able to embed the button – which will encourage a rapid adoption. Just like the Facebook Like button, this is going to be key for blogs, news sites, online shops in getting their pages and products out there. There is a strong incentive for commercial sites to adopt this and work themselves into the user’s social context. More +1 recommendations will also improve the SEO rating of a site. It’s a no-brainer for site owners to introduce this..

Google explain on TheGoogleBlog

Anna Leach

3 comments

  • I have to admit that the idea of organising people into groups I find very compelling. Right at the moment I don’t share my facebook page with business contacts. I suspect many others have the same issues that a facebook page is about your social life and you quite possibly don’t want to mix that with your business life. I think there may be a cultural aspect to this as well. In the US I think there is less of a divide between private and business life, here in the UK I think we tend to have a firmer divide. Whether that’s a good or bad thing who’s to say but it does impact how we view applications like Facebook from a business standpoint.

    I’m going to be signing up for a Google+ account because I think this is a bold experiment from Google and I’m fascinated to see how it turns out.

    Best regards,

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