[jrockway]

I think the problem is that people feel forced into agreeing with Google's decisions when they don't, and people don't like being forced into doing something. As an example, say you won't use Google+ because you don't like their account naming policies. That's fine, don't visit plus.google.com, don't use it, and it doesn't exist to you. But when Plus results start appearing in search, a product that you like, you are reminded of a community you can't participate in. This leads to resentment for search, because it is reminding you that you aren't getting the same service that everyone else is.

Facebook, on the other hand, is very easy to ignore. I killed my account there several years ago and haven't really thought about Facebook since, since Facebook is nothing but a social network and I'm not really a big social networking guy.

I think that's what's going on here.

(I would say, "people are worried that there will only be one provider for XXX", where XXX is mail or search or chat or whatever, but I know that's not true. People did not mind AOL or Windows or the three big banks, so I doubt they really care that Google is "the only game". Slashdot users hate monopolies, but I'm not sure the average consumer cares.)

[BiosElement]

That's nonsense though. Facebook shows up in search results too. I see where you're going with that, but it's invalid.

[jrockway]

I'd like to hear what you think.

I like Google+ and SPYW, so I can only speculate. But, since I work for Google, it's important to me to be able to understand what complaints users have about our products.

[BiosElement]

Honestly my only complaint would be that Google as a company needs a human face. And when I say that, it's important to note that it took me a couple minutes to think of it.

People frequently dislike change, and so I'm pleased that a major company such as Google has the will to change and improve it's services. But they not only improve their services, which is good for their bottom line, but also releases a lot of their work and research which helps others.

[earl]

Google+ is close to blackmail. Read what Rand from seomoz has written about it [1:2] (example quote: "[...] if SPYW continues to roll out to all logged-in Google users and Google stays as aggressive as it's been in the last 10 days with pushing Google+ for even logged-out users, the service will become a necessity for search and social marketers"). Google is using their dominance in search to create side benefits for using google+: you get your picture in organic results and massively increased clickthrough, amongst other benefits, by putting your content into google+ and playing the + game. This is a step past seo: seo was optimizing for google's algo, but now google's ranking algo forces you to push and likes/pluses content into their system. So once your competitors start using it, you have to as well.

Also, as you pointed out, I dislike social and dislike that products like that continue to intrude into my search results.

[1] http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-every-marketer-now-needs-a-go...

[2] another rand video I can't find right now

[jrockway]

How do you feel about non-social things in your search results, like maps or videos? If pictures are a big deal in SEO, it seems like everyone would be communicating via video. Ultimately, I think relevancy is what "converts" people.

Also, I don't get the big push on "SEO". Just buy an ad and now you're above all the organic results anyway.

[amstr]

Regarding SEO: The Facebook "Like" button for instance has been embeddable on any page for awhile now and affects results for FB searches, ads, etc. So people have been playing the "Facebook Like" game alongside generalized SEO for awhile now and have not found it terribly difficult. In fact the "+1" is pretty much a clone of the "Like" button, so what's novel here?