8 ms·

It's an interesting way of arranging a link aggregator, in that the links are already present. That said, I don't see this taking off. People compartmentalize t

by jjcm 16y ago

It's an interesting way of arranging a link aggregator, in that the links are already present. That said, I don't see this taking off. People compartmentalize their life based on functionality. Some will see google only as a search tool, digg/reddit/hn/slashdot/etc as their social news site, gmail/hotmail/etc as their mailing client - and wont use those products for anything other than their mentally compartmentalized purpose. The other issue that I see here is the culture that is present. Think of everyone that uses google - do you want all of their votes to influence the content that you see? I don't want to see the eggplant tofurduken recipe that Aunt Millie +1'd. Sure, you can limit the influence to just your circle of friends, but that doesn't bring much new to the table. Reddit has done well because it allows for this context of culture to be one of it's primary features (via subreddits). Even HN has this driving niche focus sitewide. All that said, while I dont expect this to take off, I do expect to see a "+1 THIS!" button next to the "tweet this!"/"digg this!"/"reddit this!" button on every blogspam post out there.

dannyr 16y ago
If this will be the final product of "+1", I'd agree with you that it probably won't take off. Google, however, has been taking it methodically slow on social (and geo-location too). This is probably just a small piece of what they envision it to be. This is in contrast to the big, complicated launch of Google Wave. I'm holding my judgement for now. I'm excited to see what Google comes up with next.
- Groxx 16y ago
  Perhaps a better comparison would be Buzz. That was a big change, rolled out to everyone at once, and an attempt at grabbing a chunk of the social web in one swoop. Meanwhile, their repeated, incremental, segmented, non-intrusive changes to add social aspects to their searching have essentially all gone off without a hitch. The first time I saw Buzz, I thought "Really? Good luck with that.". Prior to the privacy hubbub (I actually read the dialog), which nigh-totally tanked it. The first time I saw a tweet from a friend come up in a relevant search result, I thought "Really? Awesome." and I clicked on the link. I think this'll end up working better than their much-ignored stars on results.
  - Andrex 16y ago
    Yeah, people are underestimating (and have been for a while) how useful social search is, and +1 is really just an extension of that. Although that may be because you need a Google Profile and have it linked to all your profiles to get the most use out of it. Google had what people had been linking to on Twitter, but they didn't have what they had "liked" on Facebook. Now they have an answer to that too.
kin 16y ago
> All that said, while I dont expect this to take off, I do expect to see a "+1 THIS!" button next to the "tweet this!"/"digg this!"/"reddit this!" button on every blogspam post out there. Agreeing with you here, not to mention I would typically +1 something after clicking on the link and reading it. This current UX has me either knowing something is worthy of a +1 before reading it or reading it, pressing the back button, then clicking the +1. A +1 THIS next to tweet/digg/like makes sense.
MatthewPhillips 16y ago
I agree 1000% that people compartmentalize based on functionality, which is why Google shouldn't be afraid of Facebook on search (that and Facebook not having search and search being difficult).
- malloreon 16y ago
  What if I'm facebook and I'm processing >500M "likes" a day? Could I create a reasonable search engine only using URLs people have "liked" and weight search results based on number of likes and whether people in my friends list have liked it?
  - MatthewPhillips 16y ago
    You could, but I doubt many would use it. I agree with the above, that people compartmentalize, and they see Facebook as a place to see pictures of their friends and play games. They see Google as place to look up information. There already is a very good search on Facebook and the fact that it is powered by Bing is unknown and irrelevant to 95% of the people. However it hasn't made a dent in search, so you have to seriously ask why that is. If you believe in Facebook as a search engine (I don't), the only real answer is because it's not powered by Likes. But to believe that, you have to believe that people have a major affinity for Likes, enough to throw away their old search habits in favor of it.
  - timr 16y ago
    That'll work great if you're searching for the latest hamster-on-a-piano video. It might not work quite so well if you're searching for something with substance. Despite the hype, most people aren't especially good at uncovering original content.
    - gumbo 16y ago
      A totaly agree, people don't usualy share much stufs on facebook? Have you seens around a link to a Hadoop tutorial in your news feed yet?
markkat 16y ago
Someone should make a +1 function with a GRE question as a captcha. A web for the rest of us!
currywurst 16y ago
Beautifully said, especially about Aunt Millie. Limiting the influence to your contacts should be the default setting. If some people are more adventurous, then they can jump in.
zmmmmm 16y ago
> I don't want to see the eggplant tofurduken recipe that Aunt Millie +1'd. I agree with you mostly, but I think you're slightly missing the point in this bit. Suppose you had searched for "eggplant tofurduken recipe" and the result that Aunt Millie +1'd happened to be shown - would you appreciate knowing that she had looked at the same page and approved it? I know I would. I think people are reading a bit too much into this as if it's now going to have a huge influence on Google's search results, taking precedence over the actual search terms. I think it's actually going to be far more incremental than that.
- extension 16y ago
  would you appreciate knowing that she had looked at the same page and approved it? I know I would Why? For a topic like that, I'd trust Google's general algorithm better than any friend or relative. And even if recommendations can improve the results, why would the recommendations of my friends be any better than those of strangers? There are a few things like music where I might care what a few particular friends think, but I wouldn't be using Google to discover things like that anyway. The only time I want to see links from my friends is when I'm taking a break and not looking for anything in particular. If Google actually wants to become a discovery/recommendation engine, it's going to be orthogonal to search. They will have to train people to use Google in a new way -- the way they currently use Facebook. This idea that goal-seeking and passive entertainment can be merged into a single activity seems really unnatural to me.
  - hartror 16y ago
    Why? For a topic like that, I'd trust Google's general algorithm better than any friend or relative. Google has an algorithm that effectively ranks the quality of recipes?! Neat!
    - extension 16y ago
      If more people link to the better recipes, then yes. If not, recommendations might help but again, why is my aunt's choice more accurate than a stranger's?

by jjcm 16y ago

dannyr 16y ago

If this will be the final product of "+1", I'd agree with you that it probably won't take off. Google, however, has been taking it methodically slow on social (and geo-location too). This is probably just a small piece of what they envision it to be. This is in contrast to the big, complicated launch of Google Wave. I'm holding my judgement for now. I'm excited to see what Google comes up with next.

Groxx 16y ago
Perhaps a better comparison would be Buzz. That was a big change, rolled out to everyone at once, and an attempt at grabbing a chunk of the social web in one swoop. Meanwhile, their repeated, incremental, segmented, non-intrusive changes to add social aspects to their searching have essentially all gone off without a hitch. The first time I saw Buzz, I thought "Really? Good luck with that.". Prior to the privacy hubbub (I actually read the dialog), which nigh-totally tanked it. The first time I saw a tweet from a friend come up in a relevant search result, I thought "Really? Awesome." and I clicked on the link. I think this'll end up working better than their much-ignored stars on results.
- Andrex 16y ago
  Yeah, people are underestimating (and have been for a while) how useful social search is, and +1 is really just an extension of that. Although that may be because you need a Google Profile and have it linked to all your profiles to get the most use out of it. Google had what people had been linking to on Twitter, but they didn't have what they had "liked" on Facebook. Now they have an answer to that too.

kin 16y ago

> All that said, while I dont expect this to take off, I do expect to see a "+1 THIS!" button next to the "tweet this!"/"digg this!"/"reddit this!" button on every blogspam post out there. Agreeing with you here, not to mention I would typically +1 something after clicking on the link and reading it. This current UX has me either knowing something is worthy of a +1 before reading it or reading it, pressing the back button, then clicking the +1. A +1 THIS next to tweet/digg/like makes sense.

MatthewPhillips 16y ago

I agree 1000% that people compartmentalize based on functionality, which is why Google shouldn't be afraid of Facebook on search (that and Facebook not having search and search being difficult).

malloreon 16y ago
What if I'm facebook and I'm processing >500M "likes" a day? Could I create a reasonable search engine only using URLs people have "liked" and weight search results based on number of likes and whether people in my friends list have liked it?
- MatthewPhillips 16y ago
  You could, but I doubt many would use it. I agree with the above, that people compartmentalize, and they see Facebook as a place to see pictures of their friends and play games. They see Google as place to look up information. There already is a very good search on Facebook and the fact that it is powered by Bing is unknown and irrelevant to 95% of the people. However it hasn't made a dent in search, so you have to seriously ask why that is. If you believe in Facebook as a search engine (I don't), the only real answer is because it's not powered by Likes. But to believe that, you have to believe that people have a major affinity for Likes, enough to throw away their old search habits in favor of it.
- timr 16y ago
  That'll work great if you're searching for the latest hamster-on-a-piano video. It might not work quite so well if you're searching for something with substance. Despite the hype, most people aren't especially good at uncovering original content.
  - gumbo 16y ago
    A totaly agree, people don't usualy share much stufs on facebook? Have you seens around a link to a Hadoop tutorial in your news feed yet?

markkat 16y ago

Someone should make a +1 function with a GRE question as a captcha. A web for the rest of us!

currywurst 16y ago

Beautifully said, especially about Aunt Millie. Limiting the influence to your contacts should be the default setting. If some people are more adventurous, then they can jump in.

zmmmmm 16y ago

> I don't want to see the eggplant tofurduken recipe that Aunt Millie +1'd. I agree with you mostly, but I think you're slightly missing the point in this bit. Suppose you had searched for "eggplant tofurduken recipe" and the result that Aunt Millie +1'd happened to be shown - would you appreciate knowing that she had looked at the same page and approved it? I know I would. I think people are reading a bit too much into this as if it's now going to have a huge influence on Google's search results, taking precedence over the actual search terms. I think it's actually going to be far more incremental than that.

extension 16y ago
would you appreciate knowing that she had looked at the same page and approved it? I know I would Why? For a topic like that, I'd trust Google's general algorithm better than any friend or relative. And even if recommendations can improve the results, why would the recommendations of my friends be any better than those of strangers? There are a few things like music where I might care what a few particular friends think, but I wouldn't be using Google to discover things like that anyway. The only time I want to see links from my friends is when I'm taking a break and not looking for anything in particular. If Google actually wants to become a discovery/recommendation engine, it's going to be orthogonal to search. They will have to train people to use Google in a new way -- the way they currently use Facebook. This idea that goal-seeking and passive entertainment can be merged into a single activity seems really unnatural to me.
- hartror 16y ago
  Why? For a topic like that, I'd trust Google's general algorithm better than any friend or relative. Google has an algorithm that effectively ranks the quality of recipes?! Neat!
  - extension 16y ago
    If more people link to the better recipes, then yes. If not, recommendations might help but again, why is my aunt's choice more accurate than a stranger's?