Google +1 is failing, miserably

Comparing the Tweet, +1 and Facebook buttons next to each other, I can easily see how people just don't understand what +1 means. The button graphic has a colored ribbon at the top with the label '+1'. Next to it, I see the number of the total clicks. However, there is no explanation what it means. Compare that to the Facebook button. It says "Recommend", and "60 people recommended this".<p>'Recommend' is a clear call to action. '+1' requires a lot of interpretation and prior knowledge. It's the same issue G+ faces with huddles, sparks, hangouts and circles. By not adopting everyday language, features become mysterious.

I honestly thought +1 <i>not</i> appearing in the stream was a feature. A feature I liked. After all if they want to share it they can share it. It's the same thing about games not appearing in the stream -- I honestly don't give two shakes if you need two more friends to visit your farm in order to get the golden shovel, I'm not interested. I like how it's segregated to it's own tab, IMO the only improvement they could make is adding an option to toggle whether you see your friend's +1s and game 'trophies' in the stream or not.

I don't think looking at one site is enough to judge whether Google +1 is failing or not.<p>With a site like msnbc, I can't help but picture an older less tech savvy crowd. A crowd that wouldn't know what google +1 is, let alone have an email other than an @aol.com.<p>If you look at other sites, Techcrunch for example. The primary mode of sharing there is Twitter, and suprisingly linkedin with facebook really lagging behind. That doesn't mean facebook likes are failing.

What benefit do I get from +1'ing something? It doesn't go in my stream, it doesn't affect anything that I know of... Why would I do it?<p>It's like they implemented it without have any idea why the customer would use it... They were just copying other people... Badly.<p>And while we're on the topic of sharing, why doesn't Google Reader send shared items to G+ yet? It has sent it to Buzz for quite a long time, and Buzz isn't even popular.

Yes, after 5 years of running Google+, they still don't have 750 million users. :-(

I'd guess that the fact that Facebook has hundreds of times more users at the moment has something to do with it as well.

+1 has been around for like 5 minutes and already I see it on almost all of the sites that I visit daily. I'd say that's a good start.<p>It's too early to say if it has failed or succeeded, though. I do wish people would be a bit more patient... But looking at the stock market, people obviously are short-termists.

In my circles which contain 800+ people, Jason Calcanis is the most prolific (and only) poster. It's essentially the Jason Calcanis feed until more people start posting things.

Really??? The author of this post is comparing the number of Facebook likes (750 million active users) to the number of Google +1s (some 25 million users) from a small sample of Internet articles...<p>People really need to stop mentioning how Google+ does not have this or that feature. It's not open to the public at large because it's not a finished product yet!

This article seems to boil down to the idea that because plus isn't a 1:1 copy of the mental model and concepts of facebook and twitter, it has to be a failure.<p>It builds on a bad assumption right out the gate, that automatically reposting trash you happen to perform a lightweight operation on is what it means to be "social" online. That only happens because facebook is pandering to marketers. I wish I still had the email where facebook described to marketers the change from "Become a fan" to "like". The change was to make it so that the action that got people to spam their friends became more lightweight.<p>The author compares it to tweeting. Really? Last I knew on the twitter you slammed a link into the text field, just like people do on plus when they actually want to share the link.<p>Ultimately, a lower number of bullshit reposted from MSNBC.com showing up in my stream than my feed is a WIN for me.

Does Google+ have to be a sucess? Everbody is a user, it just sits there up in the top of your gmail, reader, docs. There is no effort to start using it, so Google can just sit and wait for it to become a natural part of the Google apps exerience.

I guess you could say +1 is still a relatively new feature. It appears that it's something Google just released without a clear end goal in mind of how to integrate it across all of their social networks.<p>I'm hoping that they have something new and different in mind with how they integrate +1's into Google+. It's slightly annoying as a user to be presented with so many share/like buttons on a post. As it was mentioned in the blog post, what's the incentive for a user to choose the +1 button. There needs to be a benefit beyond just making the +1 viewable in your Google+ stream.

+1 in Google+ is even weirder, because you can't see a list of your +1'd G+ content <i>anywhere</i>. It's just brownie points for the poster.

I +1'd this just to make sure I could: <a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/221414/tmp/plus_one.png" rel="nofollow">http://dl.dropbox.com/u/221414/tmp/plus_one.png</a>

I guess they need to make the +1's appear in the stream, too, to make ppl care about them. I was hoping there is another way, though.

I was all ready to jump in -- under my real name, even -- until they started shitcanning (entire) user accounts. I am already too dependent upon my pre-existing Google account/services; I can't afford the risk.<p>A bit of irony in that.

"i'd +1 that" sounds better than "i'd like that".

Google doesn't get social... that's all. They demand everyone that applies for a job knows algorithms, but they fail to understand that to nail social, they need to hire people with a different type of intelligence: emotional and psychological. People who know what makes other people tick. We human beings crave attention, impressing others, and thinking we're special. We don't give a damn about placing people in Circles - that's a problem you solve once you give what people crave, not a problem that convinces people to join your social network.<p>Google does need computer scientists but the company has enough of them. This isn't a knock against Google employees, but the vast majority of their employees know how to scale search engines, or write efficient code, or write the next generation NLP parser, but to get social right, those things are unimportant.<p>To create a great social network requires less technical expertise, and more getting the little things right. Think about LinkedIn: You can't help but tweak with your skills and experience so it looks impressive to you, and to others (even if they aren't recruiters). Think about how much people care about filling in their Facebook profile, and making it look good. Now look at Google+. It's TOO clean. It's TOO private. That's a great recipe for a search engine. A horrible recipe for a social network.

On a related topic, why is google going after the "like" game anyway? They have better data than the stupid likes they can use to direct advertising. And +1 is a "meh" name. It would be more intuitive if they used a star, like gmail does, instead. Star it, save it in your bookmarks and tell your friends.

+1 is failing miserably, as opposed to author's sense of perspective?