

Google Already had a Like Button (and other redundancy) - jongos
http://gosdot.com/post/6664095803/google-already-had-a-like-button-and-other-redundancy

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nextparadigms
He's right. That's a lot of redundancy. Google should integrate +1 with all
their services, which I assume was their plan all along. What I'm not so sure
of is if they were planning on _keeping_ the other "likes". I sure hope not.

They also need to figure out more ways in which a +1 can be useful to the
user. It just makes their search a bit better? I don't think that's enough.

EDIT: The reason I'm saying that is because, I don't think "making search
better" should be the main "feature" of +1. Think of it this way. Say I were a
regular user of Bing. And last I heard they are using Facebook likes to
improve the search results, make them more social and so on.

Now the question is - would I start liking stuff just because I want my search
results to be improved or because I want my friends to see what web pages I
like _on Bing_? Probably not.

If anything I'll like a page because:

1) I want to let the publisher know that I like the article/page

2) I want my friends on Facebook to see I liked it

I think people are using +1 now just for the first reason, and it doesn't seem
that compelling to me. Pressing the +1 button feels like you're upvoting a
comment on Engadget, and it probably mostly gets impulse clicks. But if this
is all it does, then I doubt the +1 button will be more used than a Retweet or
Like.

Also, I'm not sure what Google's grand social strategy is, but there seems to
be one strong correlation between successful social networks (Twitter,
Facebook) and revolutions. So Google would need to ask themselves: Can +1/our
social strategy be used in a country that wants to do a revolution, and help
them achieve that revolution with its help?

Maybe if they integrate it in Youtube, and 10,000 Iranian people +1 one video
on it, it would appear at the top of many Iran related Google searches? That
might work. Either way, I feel that passing this revolution test will be the
difference between a successful social strategy and a bad one, because I think
that if a social network can pass this test, it also means it can be useful
for a lot of other social things, too.

I also hope they're going to redesign the Profiles page if that's where they
intend to let you see all the +1's, and that they streamline the Profiles URL.

~~~
rufibarbatus
They could arguably expand it into a full-blown social bookmarking service (in
which case it would be adorable if they implemented the ability to +1
privately).

EDIT: Think of a dashboard, a homepage to the internet. Not in the Reddit
sense, nor in the Netvibes sense. Something between Tumblr and Pinboard,
maybe.

~~~
parfe
>Think of a dashboard,

Maybe some sort of web portal?

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ansy
I think the Like button is against Google's DNA which is why all these
initiatives seem half assed. Google doesn't want to rely on users to say what
they like. Instead Google looks at actual user behavior by examining logs.
It's the same reason Google resists limiting or anonymizing logs. It's also
the reason Google did the "unthinkable" by combining its cookie with Double
Click's - Google derives enormous value by analyzing actual user behavior
across both on Google's own sites and across every other site with Google's
ads. Asking the user to self report by clicking a button every time seems
primitive in comparison and not worth pursuing.

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ryanisinallofus
Google is organized like software: modularized and broken up into autonomous
units (like old HP). It's very likely nobody at Google has the oversight to
see the big picture user experience and more importantly the authority to make
it a good one. Who can force Youtube, Buzz, Reader, etc to work together to
make one great voting feature?

At Facebook they have the correct view that their entire end-user facing
experience is their single product with individual features simply being parts
of a whole. Google should take this same view because users don't care how
much Google engineers enjoy their autonomy or how cool it is to work there.
Unlike Google itself, users see every Google branded product as using a single
site or app. Users most likely use more than one component of Google and it's
how those components work together that make up the total overall user
experience of Google.

The excuse of "well that's another division" simply doesn't matter and is a
poor excuse. Apple and Facebook don't seem to have this same problem. Apple
has been around longer, and Facebook has grown faster.

So what's the fix? Create a UX design team with true authority? Is it well
past time for Google to grow up and start acting like the billion dollar money
machine they are? Or maybe I'm way off base. Google is still printing money
even with their sub par user experience and total lack of social clout. Maybe
they should just stick to what they're good at like Facebook and Apple seem to
do.

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nl
This is a symptom of the strongly autonomous teams that Google uses.

Autonomous teams are great in that allow the team to control their own
destiny. However, they don't make for a great cross-product experience.

The alternative is the Microsoft way - where all products are supposed to work
together and support each other. The problem there is that Microsoft is very,
very slow to ship stuff as everything needs to be synchronized.

Facebook has it easy - they only have one product. Apple has this problem
occasionally, but doesn't have the breadth of product Google has.

(I'd note that many people think Google should become _more startup like_. In
effect, that is asking for more chaotic product development - no startup co-
ordinates feature releases across as many products as Google has to)

~~~
ahalam
The teams maybe autonomous in Google but I'm sure that they are aware that
they are duplicating functionality and thus really harming the company. What
the heck the are product managers and their managers doing at Google? Building
their own little empires?

~~~
nl
_What the heck the are product managers and their managers doing at Google?
Building their own little empires?_

It's not as simple as that. In every case, if you look carefully there are
good reasons why each version operates like it does. Each team is trying to
make the best possible product. The lack of oversight doesn't necessarily
indicate empire building.

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pbreit
I though th writer was going to say that clicking on a search result is a
decent proxy for +1. Returning quickly could be -1/2.

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mattslight
Yes, it was called PageRank.

surely google's real "plus one" is it's page rank. a mechanism which is far
more sophisticated and less prone to fickle bias.

why do we need an additional method to say "i like this website". the
backlinks and google's original algorithm back in 1996 was supposed to be this
innovation.

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glassx
Honest question: the reason for such redundancy and overlap is because
different Google teams want/have independence, because they can't communicate
with each other and reach an agreement, or because they're afraid to piss off
users with radical changes?

~~~
jerf
Synchronizing efforts has both costs and benefits. Costs are frequently
underestimated, especially if you're outside looking in and aren't the one
paying them. Communication has the well-known problem of tending to scale like
n^2 (though I'm inclined to think it's somewhat more like 1.6, it's still a
polynomial growth), and synchronizing two teams often ends up building more
than just a leader <-> leader link, let alone three or more teams. It's easy
to say "it should be done", it's a lot harder to actually pay the costs.
Benefits are often oversold, too; yes, perhaps in this case Google is missing
out on some huge opportunity, but even if that is true (which I'm dubious
about), it would be the exception, not the rule.

Sometimes the costs still outweigh the benefits, sure, but it's often a more
subtle analysis than it first appears. Imposing excessive synchronization
requirements is a seductively easy path to some bad problems.

I have no inside knowledge of Google, but the mere fact of their size and
general success puts a bound on how much synchronization between teams is even
theoretically possible.

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gscott
The Google toolbar used to have a happy and sad face you could click on. Where
that went or what it did, who knows...

Wait I found the answer: [http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2048181/Google-
Adds-Spa...](http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2048181/Google-Adds-Spam-
Reporting-Features)

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sek
They probably already use these metrics, but there was no equivalent to the
Facebook like button. I personally use neither of them, and when you look at
the numbers of the FB-Likes always very low.

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sixcorners
Can't like and +1 mean different things? I mean, I might like the YouTube
video about the rooster crowing for an extended period of time, but in no way
would I +1 it.

~~~
jongos
Sure. My point isn't that +1 should be all things social for Google, rather
why isn't there +1 button on YouTube or in Reader? If it were there, people
would use it. And if there are buttons there that aren't being used, such as
'like' and 'share', get rid of them. If they all get used, great.

It just seems like a great way to create a more unified social experience for
users to leverage the thing that's working - +1.

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plq
google also records which search results are clicked by the end users, which
is simply an implicit "like" button that was there since the beginning.

