How to get a Google +1 button and Twitter follow button

01 June 2011

Written by Jonathan Walker

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Read more about: Twitter | Google | social bookmarks | search

There have been lots of new toys to play with lately, with Twitter launching their new "follow" button and Google launching the +1 Button.

You can get them here and here:

http://twitter.com/about/resources/followbutton

http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/index.html

And you might be able see them in action right here at this blog post, somewhere to the right of my smiling photograph (although the +1 button seems a bit unreliable at the moment).

Your "friends and contacts" will see what you have favourited with the +1 button, according to Google. This seems to mean people who have connected to your Google profile. I'm a bit hazy because I personally have never used my Google profile for anything, nor connected to anyone else's Google profile, so I'm not sure how it works. I use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as Skype and Windows Live, but that's it.

Having said that, Google also suggests that the number of +1 "votes" received by a page could appear next to its entry on Google search pages. Google explains:

For example, imagine two women - Arielle and Kyla - who've never met. Arielle, an architect, decides to +1 her favourite design website. Kyla finds the same site on Google Search and sees Arielle's +1, even though she doesn't know Arielle. Arielle's +1 helps Kyla decide to check out the site, and Kyla ends up loving it!

Well, if that's going to work as it sounds, doesn't it change the very nature of Google search from an engine driven by complicated algorithms to one driven by user recommendations? Or am I going too far?

The new Twitter button seems very nice though.