Opinion: Google +1
Every week I grill the Base Creative team on issues affecting the online world. This week's hot topic: Google +1.
Google announced they were officially rolling out +1 last week. Is this yet another profile to manage? And how significant do you think +1 will be for website owners?
Probably not as significant today as it will be tomorrow. Search engines have been making moves into social media for years. This is another attempt to bring personalised and targeted search results based on your social networks. Helpful, but make sure you hang out with people who are like you.
Google, whose name is synonomous with online searching, hasn't really been able to make its mark in the arena of social networking. Perhaps by creating a "community" around search with +1 it may have a better chance this time. The question is: Do you really want to know what your friends thought about the "florist in central london" results? Would it be helpful to go to your friend's profile and see the services they recommend? If your answer is yes, +1 is for you!
I don't think Google +1 will go beyond the Internet-savvy web and tech crowd (who for the most part already have Google accounts). Google Wave and Google Buzz were massive failures and many other products have failed to reach the masses. This is more a reflection of Google's poor marketing than anything else!
For me this is another clear indication by google that social media is influencing rankings and this will become more of a factor as time goes by. They are now introducing their own piece of this pie. I don't think this is really another profile to manage for most people, as I do not believe that most people really take notice of what google does with their personalisation. What people should take away from this is that it does shout "Social Media Influences SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)"!
From what I’ve seen of +1, there isn’t a ‘profile’ so to speak – you influence search results within your local group. Whether this is significant depends on a few factors: how long Google take to roll it out worldwide (the new navigation launched a couple of months ago still isn’t here yet), whether Google can market it properly (as their most recent launches haven’t exactly been successful – Wave or Buzz anyone?) and whether users actually get the concept.