Google+ sure has had a groundswell of support since launching the project a few weeks ago. Everyone seems to want to try out the new service, and even Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has an account on the social media site. Now we learn from Mashable that the Google +1 button is already more common on websites than the Twitter “tweet” button. The report states that after analyzing the 10,000 largest websites, 450 of them had the +1 button compared to only 340 for Twitter. Facebook is still the dominant force in the market with 2,000 sites using some form of the “Like” button.
Currently the +1 buttons do not count as hits nor do they alter the weighting of searches on Google. According to SocialTechnology.com, that could change in the future. Jim Prosser, Google spokesman, said that, “we are not currently changing the ranking system but we’re excited to see what the data looks like going forward.” This falls in line with Google’s obvious strategy of making these slow and calculated changes. After the failures of Google Buzz and Wave, the company wants to make sure that they do things right this time.
Considering that Google+ is still in its infancy stages, it’s impressive that they’ve already taken over Twitter in terms of easily liking content on the Internet. While it remains to be seen how successful this latest entry into social media will be for Google, early signs show that the company may have a winner on their hands.