Monika's Blog

Google just added their own version of a ‘like’ to search results: Google +1. It is currently accessible via an opt-in experiment.

After the experiment is turned on, you have a ‘+1′ button next to search results. When you click +1 you get this pop up:

Here is how it appears on my search after I have ‘+1′d’ the result. Not sure how it will appear to you or my friends (or whatever term Google calls friends, followers, fans etc):

At first I was a bit skeptical about the social sharing that Google implemented a few months ago, but I really like seeing what people have shared on Twitter that I may have missed (or in this case, seeing what I have shared in the past):

Not sure how quickly this whole ‘+1′ thing will catch on, but Google is definitely going after Facebook with this experiment.

I found a good reason to use Bing.com! Ok that may have been a little more excited than it should be, but I am impressed I have found a legitimate reason to use Bing over Google.

When searching for an online company, like retailer Amazon.com, on Google you get a lot of links to Amazon.com, Books, Web Services, EC2, Wikipedia of the Amazon River etc:

BUT look at the same search with Bing:

This may not be a huge deal to you, but they have Amazon.com’s phone number listed under all of the other links!  Have you ever searched for Amazon’s phone number? Unless they have changed the location recently, it is near impossible!

Having that bit of information show up for an online-only retailer is a huge deal. Google does really well at showing the phone number and map for local retailers but I have not seen a search results page like this from them (yet).

I tried a few other online companies, Facebook and Myspace, and they both also show up with their phone numbers listed under/within the first listing.

I will say, I am impressed with Bing on this one.

(did hell freeze over yet?)