Google’s #1 button

So we think that it is official. Google wants to have a “like” button (like Facebook) when it decided to introduce the #1 button in March. After playing around with it for a while, we are not quite sure if it is as useful as Google would like you to think or more of an annoyance.

If you like a product or a website you can give it a #1 rating as can your friends. If you are signed into your Google account and do a search, your search result will be populated by #1’s that your Google contacts have made.

Yes you heard right everyone in your Gmail contacts will know show up when you do a search with their likes, is that what you want? Is everyone that you have emailed a friend or do you have acquaintances and work colleagues in your mailing list? Do you want all those different entities involved in your searches or do you want to keep them separate.

When you do a search do you want the results based on what the people in your email list think or on the usual algorithms that Google uses? The choice is yours but it is worth thinking about.