Plus One – Google’s Faceoff with Facebook’s Like
The newest social media, networking and sharing feature to hit the web is Google’s “+1” button. Individuals, small businesses and, naturally, Realtors can all benefit from this version of Facebook’s ‘like’ feature.
Currently, the +1 button is a way of saying “this is really high tech” or “I like this a lot and I think you should check it out” on things you have found on a search result or an ad. Recommending the information by pushing the +1 button will allow you, the Realtor, to publicly show you are giving something your stamp of approval. In the future, this could not only be very beneficial to your clients, but also enable you to highlight posts, pages or websites that you own or that you want people to know about.
The +1 network includes “My contacts” from your Gmail account. A profile tab with the +1’s listed allows you to easily manage them, as well as another page that allows them to be disabled from the user’s Google profile if so desired.
So, how do you use +1? When you see something that you want to give your thumbs up to, there will be a +1 button next to it and you simply click the button. The button will turn blue and a message is displayed verifying your +1. All your +1′s will automatically be added to your Google profile. Of course, Google requires that you have a Google profile to take advantage of this new tool… go figure, right?!
Here’s Google’s short video on how they envision this to work:
In a nutshell, you’ll have the ability to say “hey this is really interesting, I think you should know about this” and you will, therefore, come across as an agent who knows their stuff. That’s not a bad thing, unless you +1 something that is not very professional… YBW.
For example, if schools are of particular interest to someone looking for a home, there may be an article about the academics of a school within the area where your client is searching. By +1′ing this article, a client could be informed that they should read this particular article.
Eventually the +1 button will be seen in millions of places – including real estate sites, real estate related sites and of course search engines.
If +1 is something you think you would like to add to your blog and/or website, visit https://services.google.com/fb/forms/plusonesignup/. We have, and we think you should too!
You can also give it a test drive by visiting Google’s Experimental page at http://www.google.com/experimental/
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“When you see something that you want to give your thumbs up to…” Seems ironic that it has to be explained in terms Facebook users can relate to. As much as I’ve tried to use +1, I have a feeling it will have the same fate as Google Wave.
thanks suzanne for the heads up
if i may add, based on my wanderings today after reading your post — in order to activate the +1 feature after you’ve completed your profile, you need to make a stop at: http://www.google.com/experimental/index.html
+1 should be the first one featured, and click on “join”
Seems cool but it’s useless until you can add it to sites, and in particular, blog posts.
Can’t say I’m overwhelmed here. Confused, perhaps. does this replace buzz? supplement buzz? should I +1 this article, buzz it, and the “like it” for FB? How many people do I know that us google accounts as much as FB accounts? I just don’t see much incentive to start another sharing platform
It would be more helpful if we could +1 our own websites and blogs. Not sure how well received this will be with the general public.
The biggest problem with the +1 is that it screams “copy cat” and most internet users are looking for something new and innovative. As Jonathan pointed out, how many people are using their Google accounts?