Google Expects to Counter Facebook’s Superiority with Its New “+1” Recommendation Tool

Google has enrolled its “+1” feature to the World Wide Web on 1^st June, 2011. Google Inc expects that all major websites will adopt its new feature in respect to its gigantic search engine, as this new recommendation tool will enhance that search engine to display better online content and ads. Google has been using this "+1" recommendation button in its own official websites, like Google blogs etc, since two months from now, but the feature is now expanded to all other publishers on the web as of this Wednesday.

Analyst’s claim that this new +1 feature is quite akin to Facebook’s revolutionary "Like" button, which is now one of the world’s most integrated share features on almost every website on the web. The “+1” button will allow the users to recommend any content on the web, like articles, photos, products, videos, songs or anything else of that sort, to their Google friends. This new tool will also allow Google to collect more personal information of its users, as it is beneficial for either Google or Facebook, to gain this information for providing their users with more related online adverts generating them immense revenue.

Facebook is always getting more inside and personal information regarding its users as they spend most of their time sharing their thoughts, photos and links on the website. This strength of Facebook is very troublesome for Google as this personal information of Facebook users, which are more than 500 million users, is not even remotely shared with Google's search engine. Former CEO of Google Inc., Eric Schmidt, admitted that ever growing popularity of Facebook is a great threat for Google, while he was giving an interview on Tuesday at the D: All Things Digital conference. Schmidt confessed that his powerlessness to counteract Facebook four years ago was one of the biggest regret of his decade-long career.

Hence now the current CEO of Google Inc., Larry Page, is doing all he can to develop the social networking aspect of Google’s Search Engine. This release of +1 button is also aimed to get the people’s review on their interest and gather more personal information as they highlight their recommendations in Google's influential search engine. The results with friend’s recommendation will only be visible to the search results of the users who have told Google to enable the new feature.

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These personal recommendations of Google will also be shared with Microsoft Corp.'s Bing search engine, as Bing also continues collaborating with Facebook's Like button as part of a partnership.

Google’s former CEO and Executive Chairman, Schmidt, Reviews Its Rivals Including Microsoft, Apple, Facebook at an Interview

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Eric Schmidt, Google’s co-founder and executive chairman, stated that his company is a member of “gang of four” kings leading the consumer technology. His list of these four kings including, except Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook hence it specifically ruled out Microsoft. He was giving an opening interview at the All Things D conference, held in southern California. Schmidt was very certain to ignore the world’s largest software company in the race of enterprise, he stated that Microsoft was “not driving the consumer revolution in the minds of consumers.” He explained that most of the profits of Microsoft are gained by the corporate sales and not from consumers. Schmidt did not even include the Xbox gaming system in the evaluation as he stated it was “not a platform at the computational level.”

Schmidt made it sound like a threat for Microsoft, that it should be afraid of Google and its enterprise space. Schmidt declared that we are all seeing “the death of IT as we know it,” as innumerable companies are taking the major step of moving their data from local servers to online servers. Microsoft is one of the great rivals of Google, in the race to release better cloud-based services in the market.

Schmidt had ambivalent words for Apple; Google has partnered Apple in some cases like search and maps, but it is also among its chief rivals in cases like mobile operating system. Schmidt admitted that Apple has very “beautiful products” in the market, but also stated that the company is a little too harshly on its iOS developers. He said, on the contrary, that the developers of Android relatively enjoy more freedom in the app development and releasing sector. He stated that “Apple’s model is the reverse of the Google model,” adding that “the Google model is, let the market decide.”

Schmdit Warns the Government; Anti-Piracy Laws Will Have Disastrous Effect on Freedom of Speech

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Google's recently acclaimed chairman, Eric Schmidt, gave a warning to the government regarding their intentions of blocking access to targeted illegal filesharing websites, he cautioned them that this action will have "disastrous precedent" for freedom of speech. He was addressing the media after his keynote speech at Google's Big Tent conference, which took place on Wednesday in London. Schmidt mentioned that Google well definitely attempt to restrict access to the Pirate Bay, and other "cyberlocker" websites, which are considered to be distributing illegal downloading. It is already a part of governments plan to tackle this online piracy with controversial methods like Digital Economy Act.

Schmidt stated that "If there is a law that requires DNSs [domain name systems, the protocol that allows users to connect to websites], to do X and its passed by both houses of congress and signed by the president of the United States and we disagree with it then we would still fight it." He also added "If it's a request the answer is we wouldn't do it, if it's a discussion we wouldn't do it."

Schmidt has assumed the office of Google's executive chairman just last month, as he had remained its chief executive for almost ten years. He labeled this act of the government to be very similar to the acts of the Chinese government to be placing restrictions over various websites. He declared "I would be very, very careful if I were a government about arbitrarily [implementing] simple solutions to complex problems.” He went on saying "So, 'let's whack off the DNS'. Okay, that seems like an appealing solution but it sets a very bad precedent because now another country will say 'I don't like free speech so I'll whack off all those DNSs' – that country would be China.”

He seemed highly concerned as he said "It doesn't seem right. I would be very, very careful about that stuff. If [the UK government] do it the wrong way it could have disastrous precedent setting in other areas."