Social networking services and features like Google +1 can be lonely places when they first launch. Google’s latest experiment presents easy-to-use features that let you tell the world you like something, but so few people are actually using the service that it’s a bit quiet, dull and not all that fulfilling. Google has many millions of users around the world, so +1 won’t remain this way for long, but the more time I spend with it, the more I’m convinced that no matter how vibrant it becomes, Google +1 is not, at least by itself, a social network.
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Google tried and, I think, largely failed to build a social network on its platform of services. Buzz still exists, but the reception hasn’t been warm. Buzz is a social network inside an e-mail service and leveraged Gmail’s contact list. In fact that leverage was a bit too strong and on the day Google announced +1, it was also apologizing for over-reaching with the original Buzz. Google will, to a certain extent, be paying for that mistake with scheduled privacy audits for the next 20 years.
Buzz has conversation around shared content. I know this because I’m a buzz member and every once in a while I see a little conversation about something I Tweeted (I connected Buzz and my Twitter feed) pop up in my Gmail inbox. I’ve never been a fan of the Buzz interface. If I want conversation around content and ideas, I’ll stick with the cleaner Twitter and better organized Facebook. In fact, I think Facebook does the best job of driving shared conversation. +1 (or is the vernacular “Plus One”?) is not about conversation. It’s about finding things that those in your circle of contacts (and possibly people outside that same circle) deem worthy of this little “+1” tag (or button). That button, by the way, appears to replace Google’s personalized Stars, which is odd because I think those helped define what might show up on top of frequent searches and has nothing to do with result curation. Of course, those Stars would only appear on search results and these new +1 tags will ultimately show up in a variety of places: in search results, on pages (sites, stories) and even ad ads. At least that’s what Google’s promising.
Google +1 is what I like to call passive curation. Passive because there isn’t a global aggregation of curated +1 content for everyone to see. Yes, you could view all the collected +1’s of a particular user on their Profile +1 tab, but that page has to be shared before you can see it. For most people, I suspect their experience with +1 will be fairly random. They’ll see it here and there based on who they’re connected to, but they may also see it on sites that have a lot of +1’s. It seems, though I am not certain, that Google may show these +1 buttons on results and content that gets enough +1 clicks. For example, CNN.com might get a lot of +1’s, so perhaps a search result that shows the site might have the tag for everybody’s search result, regardless of whether anyone they know has actually +1’ed it. By the way, if Google really wants people to adopt this, they need to come up with something better than “I Plus One’d It.” Facebook’s “Like” is so much more obvious.
So Google +1 is not about conversation or, really, interaction with other people. It’s about finding good stuff. By itself, it’s not a social network and barely a social tool. Google Profiles, what’s behind +1, is what makes it truly interesting. You see, you can’t +1 anything if you don’t have a Google Profile. Millions of people do have these profiles, which are a little like Facebook profiles in that you have your name, employment info, education, relationships, if you’re looking for a new relationships, etc. You can choose to hide or show your profile in search. Profiles have tabs: One is “About”, another is “Buzz”, the third is PicasaWeb (if you store and share photos on Picasa’s’ Web-based entity) and the newest is the experimental “+1’s.” The problem is, for all that Google Profiles have, it’s really very little like Facebook. There’s no sense of community or real social interaction. People can e-mail you through your profile (if you allow it), but the mail is not on display there. Conversations in Buzz are hidden under the buzz tab. There’s nothing about what others in your network (those who are connected to you through your contacts in Gmail) are doing online. Google Profile isn’t really ready to be a social platform.
+1 does resemble Facebook’s Likes in that they’re a way of telling other people that you like the page, content or ad, but they don’t aggregate in a way you can perceive, and your +1’s are not actively shared with others in your network. If, on the other hand, a contact searches for something you’ve searched for before, they should see your +1 tag. What this little bug will mean to people in search results, though, is questionable. For me, it won’t mean much. There’s no way someone else can know if a particular page is the right result for my particular query. Remember, Web sites, pages and ads come up in a variety of search results based on dozens of different embedded keywords and SEO (search engine optimization) measures. In other words, some +1’ed results will be more relevant to your query than others.
There is nothing wrong with this small and relatively cautious step by Google. +1 is just another piece of a much bigger social and content-curation puzzle. However to truly compete with Facebook, Google will have to transform Google Profile pages into a destination that brings together all its tools: mail, photos, video, messaging, search results, and sharing into a cohesive page where people want to spend their time.