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It's great that Google are giving a way to opt out but I'm really struggling to see why this is something bad. Such endorsements are only shared with people you

It's great that Google are giving a way to opt out but I'm really struggling to see why this is something bad. Such endorsements are only shared with people you're sharing stuff with anyway, and if I saw a friend had "endorsed" a business that was displaying an ad I'd actually pay attention to that.

barrkel 13y ago
I have a different view of '+1'. I see it more like an indicator that I like something, to be seen by the people who make the thing I like, so they know it's good. I don't particularly want to share that with anyone.
- oakwhiz 13y ago
  This is interesting because I think way too many different meanings are attributed to a single social action. If someone posts a good news story about a current event that you disagree with, should you like or dislike the news story? A lot of HN folks would probably like (or upvote) the story, but some people, especially in other communities like YouTube, have a reversed view on this, and will use the dislike button to express a negative emotion even if they actually thought the video was good. For this reason I'm actually surprised that significant advertising value can be mined from data about +1s and likes. I wonder if we need more expressive "single-button" social interactions, like some kind of hybrid between tags and likes. At the very least, some kind of way to express to the computer, and to friends, that you want to promote some piece of content (or censor it) while simultaneously disagreeing/agreeing with the idea presented in the content.
  - bsullivan01 13y ago
    For this reason I'm actually surprised that significant advertising value can be mined from data about +1s and likes. The value might be just to get the person to click on an ad, and pad up this quarter's revenue, right before Christmas. Of course if ad clicks go up, unpaid traffic from unbiased Google goes down even more.
- riquito 13y ago
  Aren't you misinterpreting the effect of +1? +1 makes publicly available the fact that you like something, so you are saying "I want to share with the world that I like this thing"
  - barrkel 13y ago
    If I want to share something with the world, I'll post it on twitter, facebook, my blog, the off-topic mailing list at work, or another relevant forum for sharing with the people I think may be interested in that thing. There is no context, zero, wherein I want to share anything with everyone; and I'm certainly not going to categorize contacts into "circles" etc. FTR, I think I've clicked on +1 buttons perhaps three times, and all of them were in Google Reader. That also had a sharing feature, which is the thing I used when I wanted to share the article. Mostly I used the +1 to add to the existing like count for any given article - and as I said, that wasn't often. In so far as +1 is for sharing, that's how much I don't use it.
bsullivan01 13y ago
Nice try, I bet you drunk some GKoolAid. You +1 a company, say HP, because you bought Laptop XYZ. Now Google has been cutting unpaid traffic to everyone with their gimmicks http://i.imgur.com/mhJhc5W.png http://i.imgur.com/mhJhc5W.png and Google's own spam so many more are forced to advertise. HP advertises on Google, Desktop ABC and since you +1-ed them, your friends will click on it, thinking you bought that desktop (about half are unlikely to know they clicked on an ad, they'll think it's an unbiased Google result). Now there's absolutely no reason to believe that Google or HP care if your friends got the best computer for their money, Google wants their ad money and HP is in the business of selling computers at margins as high as they can. In essence, you are helping Google scam your friends. Why isn't Google letting your friends see the websites you ranked but only ads? To make them more likely to click on ads. Almost always advertisers advertise the product they make the most on, and the cost of advertising is tacked on to the price.
- krelian 13y ago
  >Now there's absolutely no reason to believe that Google or HP care if your friends got the best computer for their money, Google wants their ad money and HP is in the business of selling computers at margins as high as they can. You seem to be convinced that all business is just one big scam. I wonder what you do for a living? >Why isn't Google letting your friends see the websites you ranked but only ads? To make them more likely to click on ads. Well I certainly think they wouldn't add this feature had they thought it will drive down the click rate but immediately approaching this as if it were a conspiracy to get some extra clicks while users figure it's a scam is just that, a conspiracy. In the long run it just doesn't make sense for google to display results that are not relevant to visitors and they know that.
  - bsullivan01 13y ago
    Really? Have you seen Google's search results lately? You have to scroll quite a bit to see organic results, and they have done quite a bit so users mistake ads for content. That's one big scam and it coincided with (IMO) another scam, major penalties on websites to cut their unpaid traffic. I don't care for what Google says, I look at what it does. You should too: http://ho9od35yvs05ejqn.zippykid.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Google-Adwords-HD-Monitor.jpg http://ho9od35yvs05ejqn.zippykid.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/u... http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-it%E2%80%A6or-maybe-not/ http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-it%E2%80%A6or-maybe-no... http://moz.com/blog/mega-serp-a-visual-guide-to-google http://moz.com/blog/mega-serp-a-visual-guide-to-google Trying hard to drive clicks to the best sites, right ?
DanBC 13y ago
> but I'm really struggling to see why this is something bad. Partly it's the backlash against all the privacy invasions recently. People realised that all the minor privacy creeping leads to a situation where you can't do anything without it being very public. They should have been making a fuss when the systems were being set up, but they dismissed the privacy-advocates as tin foil hatters and conspiracy nuts. Some people are saying they are opting out and never plus one anything. That's fine. I'm going to do the opposite and plus one everything. I might even find a Firefox plugin to do it for me. Every page I'm on, click +one for everything. Spider pages linking to those pages ad plus one those too. Spider pages from popular news sites and plus one those as well.
- kintamanimatt 13y ago
  > People realised that all the minor privacy creeping leads to a situation where you can't do anything without it being very public. Okay, this is an argument that could resonate with me, and an angle I hadn't thought about. However, I still struggle to see how a public expression of liking something (a +1 is just that, as are reviews) is a bad thing. It's only shared with people you permit too. It's well known that these are not private notes to oneself and I really can't see how this could be inch-by-inched to something egregious.
  - ronaldx 13y ago
    A public expression of liking something does not typically give the company permission to use your endorsement as part of a commercial presentation.
    - kintamanimatt 13y ago
      It does if the TOS says so and the TOS isn't in violation of the law! I'm really having a hard time wrapping my head around the uproar. If I've +1'd something or written a review I can't see the problem with that being used next to an ad. If I were an advertiser I'd be quite happy for +1s and socially relevant positive reviews to be displayed next to my ad because I know they'd increase click-thru rates, and possibly even conversion rates too. Generally, I actually really like the idea of this. If I saw something that said ronaldx and 77 others +1'd this and I thought you had good taste, I'd probably be more likely to check it out. Conversely, if I thought your taste sucked I'd also be grateful to know that you liked it! There's one hitch in this ride though: I have a Google Plus account but I don't use it and don't tell people about it, so I'm not going to be seeing these recommendations.
DanielBMarkham 13y ago
"I'm really struggling to see why this is something bad" Let's say you are famous person X. Would you want Google giving out your endorsements to people and making money from doing it? Probably not. So why is it okay if you're just some schmuck? Our opinions and thoughts have value. Online providers are feasting on our thoughts and actions and turning it all into some kind of version of a radio promotional spot. If your life is a piece of merchandise, then maybe it doesn't matter. Or perhaps you're not that important. But many others have done the math and it is important to them. So I guess the real question is: how much do you value your thoughts?
- kintamanimatt 13y ago
  What difference does it make if I'm famous and +1 something or write a review online about something because I have an opinion? What's the difference between choosing to +1 something and writing an unsponsored tweet or blog post? Why is it okay to write a review on Yelp (and have them profit from it) but not +1 something? I appreciate other people can make money from my reviews and endorsements and really I have no problem with that because in theory I get value in return by way of my friends' recommendations. 9/10 it's the reviews that make or break my decision to buy something or go somewhere, and I give as freely as I receive even in the knowledge that some third party is profiting too. Nobody's up in arms about Amazon or GoodReads profiting from reviews on their site. I don't see why this is any different.
  - DanielBMarkham 13y ago
    It's not any different. I think you need to decide whether or not you want your opinions to be a product for somebody else to sell or not. If you're happy being a Google/Amazon/Facebook/Yelp drone, go for it. Do you really need explicit endorsements from your friends in order to buy things? Or does getting them just make it easier for merchants to sell to you? Who is getting the benefit here? I personally don't believe it's an even trade. Other opinions vary.
    - kintamanimatt 13y ago

barrkel 13y ago

I have a different view of '+1'. I see it more like an indicator that I like something, to be seen by the people who make the thing I like, so they know it's good. I don't particularly want to share that with anyone.

oakwhiz 13y ago
This is interesting because I think way too many different meanings are attributed to a single social action. If someone posts a good news story about a current event that you disagree with, should you like or dislike the news story? A lot of HN folks would probably like (or upvote) the story, but some people, especially in other communities like YouTube, have a reversed view on this, and will use the dislike button to express a negative emotion even if they actually thought the video was good. For this reason I'm actually surprised that significant advertising value can be mined from data about +1s and likes. I wonder if we need more expressive "single-button" social interactions, like some kind of hybrid between tags and likes. At the very least, some kind of way to express to the computer, and to friends, that you want to promote some piece of content (or censor it) while simultaneously disagreeing/agreeing with the idea presented in the content.
- bsullivan01 13y ago
  For this reason I'm actually surprised that significant advertising value can be mined from data about +1s and likes. The value might be just to get the person to click on an ad, and pad up this quarter's revenue, right before Christmas. Of course if ad clicks go up, unpaid traffic from unbiased Google goes down even more.
riquito 13y ago
Aren't you misinterpreting the effect of +1? +1 makes publicly available the fact that you like something, so you are saying "I want to share with the world that I like this thing"
- barrkel 13y ago
  If I want to share something with the world, I'll post it on twitter, facebook, my blog, the off-topic mailing list at work, or another relevant forum for sharing with the people I think may be interested in that thing. There is no context, zero, wherein I want to share anything with everyone; and I'm certainly not going to categorize contacts into "circles" etc. FTR, I think I've clicked on +1 buttons perhaps three times, and all of them were in Google Reader. That also had a sharing feature, which is the thing I used when I wanted to share the article. Mostly I used the +1 to add to the existing like count for any given article - and as I said, that wasn't often. In so far as +1 is for sharing, that's how much I don't use it.

bsullivan01 13y ago

Nice try, I bet you drunk some GKoolAid. You +1 a company, say HP, because you bought Laptop XYZ. Now Google has been cutting unpaid traffic to everyone with their gimmicks http://i.imgur.com/mhJhc5W.png http://i.imgur.com/mhJhc5W.png and Google's own spam so many more are forced to advertise. HP advertises on Google, Desktop ABC and since you +1-ed them, your friends will click on it, thinking you bought that desktop (about half are unlikely to know they clicked on an ad, they'll think it's an unbiased Google result). Now there's absolutely no reason to believe that Google or HP care if your friends got the best computer for their money, Google wants their ad money and HP is in the business of selling computers at margins as high as they can. In essence, you are helping Google scam your friends. Why isn't Google letting your friends see the websites you ranked but only ads? To make them more likely to click on ads. Almost always advertisers advertise the product they make the most on, and the cost of advertising is tacked on to the price.

krelian 13y ago
>Now there's absolutely no reason to believe that Google or HP care if your friends got the best computer for their money, Google wants their ad money and HP is in the business of selling computers at margins as high as they can. You seem to be convinced that all business is just one big scam. I wonder what you do for a living? >Why isn't Google letting your friends see the websites you ranked but only ads? To make them more likely to click on ads. Well I certainly think they wouldn't add this feature had they thought it will drive down the click rate but immediately approaching this as if it were a conspiracy to get some extra clicks while users figure it's a scam is just that, a conspiracy. In the long run it just doesn't make sense for google to display results that are not relevant to visitors and they know that.
- bsullivan01 13y ago
  Really? Have you seen Google's search results lately? You have to scroll quite a bit to see organic results, and they have done quite a bit so users mistake ads for content. That's one big scam and it coincided with (IMO) another scam, major penalties on websites to cut their unpaid traffic. I don't care for what Google says, I look at what it does. You should too: http://ho9od35yvs05ejqn.zippykid.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Google-Adwords-HD-Monitor.jpg http://ho9od35yvs05ejqn.zippykid.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/u... http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-it%E2%80%A6or-maybe-not/ http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-it%E2%80%A6or-maybe-no... http://moz.com/blog/mega-serp-a-visual-guide-to-google http://moz.com/blog/mega-serp-a-visual-guide-to-google Trying hard to drive clicks to the best sites, right ?

DanBC 13y ago

> but I'm really struggling to see why this is something bad. Partly it's the backlash against all the privacy invasions recently. People realised that all the minor privacy creeping leads to a situation where you can't do anything without it being very public. They should have been making a fuss when the systems were being set up, but they dismissed the privacy-advocates as tin foil hatters and conspiracy nuts. Some people are saying they are opting out and never plus one anything. That's fine. I'm going to do the opposite and plus one everything. I might even find a Firefox plugin to do it for me. Every page I'm on, click +one for everything. Spider pages linking to those pages ad plus one those too. Spider pages from popular news sites and plus one those as well.

kintamanimatt 13y ago
> People realised that all the minor privacy creeping leads to a situation where you can't do anything without it being very public. Okay, this is an argument that could resonate with me, and an angle I hadn't thought about. However, I still struggle to see how a public expression of liking something (a +1 is just that, as are reviews) is a bad thing. It's only shared with people you permit too. It's well known that these are not private notes to oneself and I really can't see how this could be inch-by-inched to something egregious.
- ronaldx 13y ago
  A public expression of liking something does not typically give the company permission to use your endorsement as part of a commercial presentation.
  - kintamanimatt 13y ago
    It does if the TOS says so and the TOS isn't in violation of the law! I'm really having a hard time wrapping my head around the uproar. If I've +1'd something or written a review I can't see the problem with that being used next to an ad. If I were an advertiser I'd be quite happy for +1s and socially relevant positive reviews to be displayed next to my ad because I know they'd increase click-thru rates, and possibly even conversion rates too. Generally, I actually really like the idea of this. If I saw something that said ronaldx and 77 others +1'd this and I thought you had good taste, I'd probably be more likely to check it out. Conversely, if I thought your taste sucked I'd also be grateful to know that you liked it! There's one hitch in this ride though: I have a Google Plus account but I don't use it and don't tell people about it, so I'm not going to be seeing these recommendations.

DanielBMarkham 13y ago

"I'm really struggling to see why this is something bad" Let's say you are famous person X. Would you want Google giving out your endorsements to people and making money from doing it? Probably not. So why is it okay if you're just some schmuck? Our opinions and thoughts have value. Online providers are feasting on our thoughts and actions and turning it all into some kind of version of a radio promotional spot. If your life is a piece of merchandise, then maybe it doesn't matter. Or perhaps you're not that important. But many others have done the math and it is important to them. So I guess the real question is: how much do you value your thoughts?

kintamanimatt 13y ago
What difference does it make if I'm famous and +1 something or write a review online about something because I have an opinion? What's the difference between choosing to +1 something and writing an unsponsored tweet or blog post? Why is it okay to write a review on Yelp (and have them profit from it) but not +1 something? I appreciate other people can make money from my reviews and endorsements and really I have no problem with that because in theory I get value in return by way of my friends' recommendations. 9/10 it's the reviews that make or break my decision to buy something or go somewhere, and I give as freely as I receive even in the knowledge that some third party is profiting too. Nobody's up in arms about Amazon or GoodReads profiting from reviews on their site. I don't see why this is any different.
- DanielBMarkham 13y ago
  It's not any different. I think you need to decide whether or not you want your opinions to be a product for somebody else to sell or not. If you're happy being a Google/Amazon/Facebook/Yelp drone, go for it. Do you really need explicit endorsements from your friends in order to buy things? Or does getting them just make it easier for merchants to sell to you? Who is getting the benefit here? I personally don't believe it's an even trade. Other opinions vary.
  - kintamanimatt 13y ago