Google's +1 button, is it one too many?
Google's +1 (plus one) button has been around for a few months now, you might have already been able to click on the little +1 button in the search results if you use google.com. But now they've finally made it possible to add it to your website as well. In fact it's now sitting proudly next to my Facebook 'like' button on my main website sporting a big round zero!
Where is all this going one has to ask? Whilst I have nothing against Google for wading in and offering up their own equivalent of a Facebook 'like' button, I do think that it's probably getting a bit much for both the average user and the website owner.
It is now obligatory to host a myriad of social sharing buttons at the end of an article, either that or to use one of the many 'add this', 'share this', 'plug that' widgets. Now there is an assortment of 'like' type buttons you have to use as well. But do you HAVE to have them on your website or blog? Apparently you do if you're a serious.
Social sharing signals are already being used by some search engines to help rank websites, so it would be foolish to miss out on the opportunity wouldn't it? Apart from that it would appear that people do actually use the buttons to recommend pages to their friends. Personally, I think it's all a bit much and there are too many of these damn sharing widgets already.
Also, I don't think that Google's +1 button is the most attractive ever. The text in the counter box looks a bit odd because it's not lined up with the '+1' label, although I'm sure that most people won't notice this and I'm perhaps being a little bit picky! It remains to be seen how successful this button will be though. You won't find a serious website out there that doesn't already have a Facebook 'like' button, so it will be interesting to watch what happens with Google's +1 button.
In case you were wondering, I have started adding both the Google +1 button and Facebook's 'like' button to my sites. There's nothing quite like sheep!
But wait, there's more. Twitter have made a follow button too! I really can't see the point of this one though, because a lot of people (myself included) have already created their own twitter follow button. It does have the added advantage of a follower count though.
When will all this madness end?
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