In order to +1 things, you first need a public Google profile." - Google's +1 Overview The first problem with the +1 button is that many people do not have a Google profile. Let's be generous and say that when people realize it's a requirement to use the +1 button, they will immediately set one up just so they can start "+1-ing" all their favorite content. What then? We've heard Mark Zuckerberg rant about how you can't just tack social on to your product. Social must be at its core. Google's latest attempt to break Facebook's hold on the social graph seems destined to fail and prove Mark Zuckerberg correct. The +1 button appears next to every search result on Google, and it's already popping up on many websites. It's easy to use, but for it to have any value you would have to see what your friends have +1'd and vice versa. The whole point is to give a social weight to content that augments Google's search algorithm. So how do you see what your Google friends have +1'd? Let's actually back up from that question to the more important question: What makes someone your "friend" on Google?

On Facebook the concept of a friend is quite easy to grasp (If it weren't, our moms wouldn't be on Facebook). We add friends all the time by exploring and growing our social network on Facebook. We turn friends-of-friends into friends when they share an interesting opinion, post, photo, or status. We also take the time to add people we meet in real life to be friends on Facebook. With Google and +1, your "social network" is everyone in your Google Contacts. Think about that part just for one more second. Google Contacts. When was the last time you added someone to your contact list in Gmail? We rarely add people to these lists, and while many of them might be actual friends, or people we write to regularly, some are just collateral damage from a friend's Reply All, or a guy we sold tickets to off Craigslist five years ago -- much different from a friend whose opinion you want factored into your search results. Even if this were not the case and we did value the opinion of everyones, Google doesn't offer any tool that allows us to explore and grow our network.

One other aspect of +1 that I find quite odd is that you can view someone's activity if they are in your contact list. Unlike Facebook, this is a unidirectional relationship, and unlike Twitter you don't assume people can freely follow your activity. If I added billg@microsoft.com or larry@google.com to my Google Contacts I could become their "+1 stalker".

Many sites owned by content publishers recognize these shortcomings and have very low expectations for the +1 button; however they will be adding the +1 button to their sites anyway. Why? Because it's incredibly easy to add and everyone thinks that someday soon it may affect their Google search ranking. The cost/benefit analysis on that decision is simple. Devote a tiny amount of real estate to do what everyone else is doing because no one wants to harm their search ranking on the chance that Google includes +1 activity in that calculation. I imagine this will be the driving force behind most sites including the +1 button on their pages, and that Google will succeed in proliferating this product across the web. But do not confuse that for success -- the +1 button has a long way to go before it can deliver on Google's own goals to break Facebook's stranglehold on social.

[Note: This post pre-dated the actual release of the +1 button and was based on my conversation with several Google employees.]