Google Already Has An Invisible Like Button For Google Me, You Just Don’t Know It

On August 7, 2010, in Social Web, by Mahendra Palsule

Another day and I read another post on how Facebook’s Like button is slowly obliterating Google’s Link as the next currency of the web. The pondered question in this case is what is going to be Google’s counter-offensive against the Like.

The assumption is that Google as a search engine has worked on the principle of ranking web pages according to the number of other pages linking to it. Well, here’s the deal: when a person likes something on the web, in most cases, a link is created. Google can see this Link, and hence can understand and incorporate the Like, in its scheme of things.

This mechanism has already been publicized by Google, but I’m surprised how many folks still keep discovering it as if it were something new. For example, see this from yesterday.

Google’s Invisible Like Mechanism

Google’s Like mechanism was announced by Google in Oct 2009 in a blog post announcing Social Search, which linked to this help article that explains how it works in the background.

Google Socal Search Like Button

The battle is between Facebook’s Like and Google’s Profiles. For Facebook to capture your Like, it requires you to have an account on Facebook. For Google to capture your Likes, you need to have a Google Profile. Now, let’s compare what Facebook and Google can capture:

Facebook can capture only your Facebook Likes.

Google Profiles can capture:

  • Public content you share on Facebook
  • All tweets on Twitter
  • All shares on Google Reader
  • All shares on FriendFeed
  • All status updates on LinkedIn
  • All favorites from YouTube
  • All likes, faves, photos from Flickr and Picasa
  • All bookmarks from Delicious
  • All stories you have Digged
  • Everything you have Stumbled Upon
  • Everything you have Disqused
  • All your Blogger and WordPress blog posts
  • And dozens of existing and future sites using the XFN or FOAF standards (see FAQ)

Get the picture? From a technical standpoint, Google has all the arms and ammunition to capture Likes across a plethora of social websites. If you have a Google Profile, every action on any of your connected social websites (sort of) results in a Like being submitted to Google.

Google’s Challenge

Presentation: Currently, Google is surfacing all this behind-the-scenes information only through Social Search results. Google doesn’t have a social web site where you can see your friends’ Likes and interact with them. This is potentially the core of what Google Me is all about.

Numbers: Facebook has 500 million, very few have Google Profiles. We have been waiting for that big push for Google Profiles. It is imminent, and apparently, very close.

Tagged with: •
 
View Comments Comments
Leave A Response

Schmidt: Google Buzz is “an extension of Gmail”

On August 5, 2010, in Social Web, by Mahendra Palsule

Some interesting comments by Eric Schmidt during the Techonomy conference.

From CNET:

Schmidt said that Buzz, by contrast is doing well with tens of millions of users, basically Gmail users that also use the short-status product.

"Today Buzz is really an extension of Gmail," he said.

From TechCrunch:

“The Buzz team is doing very well,” Schmidt said. But he noted that “we tend to lump Buzz into the Gmail success.”

Compared with the initial hype, I felt these came across as pretty disparaging remarks about Buzz. I am afraid of seeing it languishing as “just an extension” of Gmail.

To my mind, this also indicates the following:

  • Google Buzz will never be separated from Gmail, what some considered the key to unlocking its true potential
  • Google Buzz never was and never will be a competitor to Facebook
  • Google Me is indeed just a social gaming network, as the WSJ had reported
  • Google Me will not be integrated with Google Buzz
  • Since Buzz is tightly integrated with Google Profiles, Google Me isn’t likely to be
  • “Tens of millions” typically means 20-30 million. Thus about 15 to 20% of the estimated 173+ million Gmail users use Google Buzz.

This clarifies a lot of ambiguity over Buzz and Google Me. But that’s reading a lot into Schmidt’s comments, so we still have to wait and see.

Tagged with: •
 
View Comments Comments
Leave A Response

Googler’s Take on Social Networking Reveals Chinks in Facebook’s Armor

On July 7, 2010, in Social Web, by Mahendra Palsule

Paul Adams, lead for User Research for Social at Google, shared a presentation a few days back that was picked up by Venture Beat among others. I am sharing it here along with my own thoughts as I think it deserves a closer look.

Why? Because:

  • Paul currently works on Buzz and YouTube
  • Google is rumored to be working on Google Me, a rival network to Facebook

The Presentation

The Real Life Social Network v2
View more documents from Paul Adams.

Key Points

  • A single umbrella group of “Friends” in an online network doesn’t mirror real-life and leads to problems. Support multiple independent groups of friends.
  • Focusing on technology is a wrong strategy. Focus should instead be on Motivation and Goals.
  • Design needs are different for different relationship types – strong ties, weak ties, and temporary ties. One solution doesn’t fit all.
  • Different communication channels are needed for different types of relationships.
  • Role of influencers is over-estimated. Also need to focus on network of person being influenced. Influence works most within close ties.
  • Network should support multiple facets of identity and also anonymity.
  • We think people care less about privacy because they misunderstand complicated privacy settings.
  • People underestimate the size of their audience and persistent nature of their conversations online.

My Thoughts

  • There is no mention of any geeky stuff here – Open ID, standards, protocols, etc. It is refreshing to see truly social insights coming from Google.
  • For each of the problems identified with current online social networks, Paul uses Facebook as an example. Most of them also apply to Google’s Orkut, but Paul chooses to ignore Orkut as if it doesn’t exist.
  • While its heartening to see these insights from Google, their real challenge is for the Product Managers and Head of Social to take what they’ve got and build on this vision.
  • Google needs many more Paul Adams.
  • The critical insight is how Paul (and by extension, Google) thinks that there can be no one size fits all approach to social networking. Facebook users already experience the problems Paul describes by mixing close friends, acquaintances, and online strangers together in common conversations.
  • Taking this forward, Google may well be saying that Buzz is a network designed for your acquaintances and weak ties. And if Google Me were indeed under development, looks like it will be a network designed for close ties – family and close friends – which is how Facebook initially started.

Tagged with: •
 
View Comments Comments
Leave A Response

Go To Top »

Switch to our mobile site