Big difference between upvoting a video on YouTube for other people on YouTube and giving a +1 to a video that could possibly go on your Google+ wall (if that even exists), influence your search results in ways you don't want, or show up awkwardly in other strange ways while using other Google products like Gmail. The real problem is the effects are unknown and upvoting is no longer a contained action with a specific social purpose. That little upvote is a commodity that Google will exploit however it can to "bring the social" or whatever they're calling it nowadays.

I think users innately understand this and are shying away from Google+ because they can sniff where all this is heading - my boss reading that I "liked" a LOLcats video while at work or my wife seeing that I "plussed" a review of Avengers by a woman in lingerie or something. If users don't know what their actions will produce (especially socially) they are going to avoid it!

> giving a +1 to a video that could possibly go on your Google+ wall (if that even exists)

It does not exist. You can specifically Share a video with Circles.

> influence your search results in ways you don't want,

In the upper right on your Search page, you can click "Hide personal results."

> or show up awkwardly in other strange ways while using other Google products like Gmail

[citation needed]

> The real problem is the effects are unknown and upvoting is no longer a contained action with a specific social purpose.

What if you want to share with your circles, what if you want things you've +1'd to influence your search results, what if you want to see better ads rather than crappy ads?

> my boss reading that I "liked" a LOLcats video while at work

Don't Share that with your boss. That's what Circles are for.

> my wife seeing that I "plussed" a review of Avengers by a woman in lingerie or something

+1's are inherently public.

I can appreciate that you like to give feedback to content creators saying, "Hey, I liked this!" Google is tying the "I" in that sentence to your Google+ account.

I think the days of "Anonymous Likes" are somewhat over... They were always susceptible to spamming, anyway. And they were never really as anonymous as we liked to think they were.

>> giving a +1 to a video that could possibly go on your Google+ wall (if that even exists)

> It does not exist. You can specifically Share a video with Circles.

https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202/plusones

> +1's are inherently public.

> I can appreciate that you like to give feedback to content creators saying, "Hey, I liked this!" Google is tying the "I" in that sentence to your Google+ account.

> I think the days of "Anonymous Likes" are somewhat over... They were always susceptible to spamming, anyway. And they were never really as anonymous as we liked to think they were.

There is a big difference between unauthenticated and anonymous, even if from the perspective of the viewer they look identical. On Hacker News, you can't tell whether I +1'd or -1'd you, but I certainly have an account that I must be logged in to in order to vote.

Oh right, forgot about that page. At least I got it right that +1's are inherently public. Oh, and also - tangentially - it doesn't really act like a Wall, because even though I'm following Matt Cutts, I don't see his +1s show up in my Stream. I have to go look for them.

> I think the days of "Anonymous Likes" are somewhat over

That's right... that's exactly the issue captured in nutshell.

I am confused: your one-level > does not seem to take into account that that is what was said by VikingCoder; are you responding to him, or are you responding to me?

Technically, "Anonymous Likes" aren't really susceptible to spamming, as through the years Google developed enormous infrastructure to avoid spamming in ad-clicks. The same technology can be easily used for "Anonymous Likes." The decision to eliminate "Anonymous Likes" is not a result of technical needs, it's a decision "from the above" to force a "more social" Google.

> Technically, "Anonymous Likes" aren't really susceptible to spamming

[Citation Needed]

Should content show up higher in Google Search Results, if it is more Liked? By whatever system of Likes you care to design... I say "yes."

That makes the "Anonymous Like" system a clear target for Search Engine Optimization.

People have to pay for ads. If it turns out that the Conversion numbers for a set of search words are lousy, then advertisers will give up on those words, and the price on those words will plummet. It's to Google's advantage to find GOOD ads, that users actually WANT to see. It's good for advertisers to only have their ads up if users WANT to see them. And it's good for users to only see ads that they WANT to see. The economy on ad words helps solve those problems.

For YouTube videos, Google knows how many people watch all the way through a video - which is one metric. They know how many times people start watching the video. They could know how many "Anonymous Likes" there are. And they can know how many +1s and Shares there are. The number of replays, too. How often people click on the video, when it shows up in search results.

Given all of that data, I assert that it's possible that Anonymous Likes have no technical value. The task: given all of the metrics, predict the likelihood that User B will enjoy watching a video. I think it's possible that Google / YouTube have determined that the number of Anonymous Likes has no statistical correlation to the likelihood that User B will enjoy watching the video. I think it's possible that the number of Anonymous Likes should have no bearing on the Rank of a video in Search Results.

Your assertion is that "The decision to eliminate 'Anonymous Likes' is not a result of technical needs". That's possible, but I think you're only speculating. Otherwise, [Citation Needed].

> it's a decision "from the above" to force a "more social" Google.

If I'm correct, that Anonymous Likes have no statistical correlation to whether User B will enjoy the video, then don't you think it's possible that having Google+ users, who are signed in, be able to +1 and Share a video might actually create BETTER RESULTS for users? Not just "more social," but more "ME" based on things I've liked, and based somewhat on the things the people in my Circles have liked?

Just an FYI, your posting style is pretty obnoxious.

sigh Bummer.

If you feel like you have the time, please try to explain roughly the same message that I tried to express, but with a posting style that is not obnoxious.

clue #1: do not type out "Sigh". Or "Le Sigh". That is something teenage girls do, and it drives people nuts.

clue #2: do not use overused internet trailer trash phrases like "Citation Needed" when you aren't on Wikipedia, or the phrases "Really? Seriously?"

clue #3: try to emotionally detach yourself from the topic and engage the merits of the topic, no need to capitalize words, etc. ALL CAPS won't help you.

When someone claims that their subjective, unsubstantiated opinion is fact, asking for a citation that backs up their claim is about the nicest way I can think of to say, "You are utterly full of shit, and I'm calling you out on your bullshit."

And pathetic. But that's the norm when you're dealing with apologists for bad behavior and bad design. Instead of learning something, they continue to childishly defend the discredited entity.

Your posting style is MORE obnoxious. Get a hold of yourself.

Again with the anonymity. The likes are pseudonymous, and currently, tied to your Google account (but not necessarily g+). So should people be allowed to have more than one Google account?

Is spamming likes really a problem now, and will the SEO target evaporate once the number of accounts is reduced? I don't think so. Quite the opposite, actually.

You say people should not have to see ads they don't want to see - good luck with that. A good deal of marketing is selling to people who aren't looking to buy.

> [citation needed]

Lubujackson's entire point is that we don't know what the consequences will be.

Ignorance is a poor excuse for inaction.

It's one of the best justifications for caution.

Or as Dr. Buckaroo Banzai once said, "Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."

It would be, except we're talking about prognostication, not some testable attribute of reality. We all continue to exist equally ignorant of what will happen tomorrow.

Nobody should work this hard to get around offensive policies, or work this hard to excuse them.

You can't thumb up on Youtube without a Google Account (which is not exactly the same as a Google+ account).

And, I already get the +1s (or thumbs up, or whatever it's called) of the people I follow on Youtube, in my Youtube stream. And I do like things there. On the other hand, sharing ? I'd think twice before doing it.

So, to make some people happy, Google would have to allow you to have a separate Google account, Google+ account, and YouTube account.

To make other people happy, it would be completely optional to link those accounts together - but keep them separate, for some reason.

To make other people happy, they should be able to use one account to do all of the those things.

Finally, to make other people happy, Google should just be a search engine with 10 blue links.

I don't really argue one way or another. Just wanted to precise that the anonymous user issue is a bit irrelevant. They couldn't do anything before, they still can't do anything.

What changes (if they really do what the original blog post suggests) is this: * They remove the up/down votes system internal to Youtube (which is already a full-fledged system, where you have a stream where you can see when someone you follow likes something, etc) * They move 'share to Google+' from the 'Share' submenu (where it already is, alongside with Facebook, Twitter) to where the up/down votes were

Actually you can have separate accounts right now. And you can link all the account right now, if your want too. This also works with Google Apps too.

BUt I don't have a Google + account. Though not for Google not trying. And frankly I don't want one. FB is enough for me.

I have a Youtube only account, not linked to any other Google services or their hosted email, and I can up or down vote any of the three videos I just randomly clicked on to check this out.

Err, it most likely is also a Google account, even a basic one, or at least linked to one. Unless you know a trick that I don't.

As far as I know, the migration from Youtube accounts to Google accounts has been forced some time ago (I tried to avoid it as long as I could).

Surely it's simple enough to create a google account that's only used for youtube?

We do it on our server at home.

Imagine if hackernews replaced upvoting with tweeting, that's what they're doing.

That's not quite correct. As far as I can tell, +1'ing things does not appear in your stream and won't appear in the streams of the folks who are following you. Sharing does, but not +1'ing. +1'ing does appear on your profile under the +1 tab if 1) someone navigates over there and 2) you have made that tab visible to that person (you can control who can see that tab). If someone visits the object that you +1'ed, then they can also see that you +1'ed it.

There's a major issue of clarity here though. It doesn't matter what really happens, if the user is unsure they'll opt for not doing it. The only thing I remember for sure about +1 was that Google made me hyper aware that my +1's were public. Which is why I almost never +1 anything except those that reflect well on me professionally (ie. it's about projecting an image of myself, nothing to do with what I actually like). Ironically a few weeks ago somebody +1's one of my Google Code projects and I was quite surprised that I couldn't find out who it was. It turns out that +1's are public but in a very confusing way. I suppose on that person's profile somewhere the +1 is visible, but I have no way to find it.

how was the user sure what happened before? with the old system, you were thumbs-upping a video from your google account. your thumbs ups were probably visible somewhere on youtube, and the things that you thumbed up were reported back to google and probably influenced your search results.

now, you're +1ing a video from your google account. your +1s are visible somewhere in google+ and are reported back to google and influence your search results.

it's the exact same thing, the button just looks different.

> it's the exact same thing, the button just looks different.

For me, a crucial difference is that Google+ is linked publicly to my real name, while YouTube was always confined to a pseudonym.

You're splitting hairs.

The OP is correct; while technically slightly different (perhaps closer to tweeting to a protected twitter account), its basically the same thing:

Your votes are publicly viewable by your social network friends.

Couldn't think of a better analogy myself

I agree with and upvoted your post, but there is one assumption you make that I'm not sure is correct:

"If I search on YouTube for "python", it has a chance to know that I mean the programming language, because of who I'm Following."

Are you really not interested in the snake just because you follow a lot of programmers?

For example, I follow the hacker news circle on Google+, because I respect technical expertise and interests of you guys. Some of you might like to write about some other topic like sports, but that's not why I'm following you.

Now if I do a Google search for "running shoes", how can Google know that everything you wrote about this topic is not to be used to "improve" my ranking?

> First, a question: any random person on the internet, without being logged in, used to be able to Thumb Up a YouTube video?

I think you needed to be logged in (or it would ask you to log in), but the point was that it didn't require a Google Plus account.

Right now your IP can vote once a day per video I believe. Yes it's pretty easy to game, but the rating % is amazingly accurate to tell me whether I'm gonna enjoy a video or not.

A lot of news sites allow voting without being logged in, as well as in the comment sections.

Business Insider, the largest business site, allows it (Quantcast #235).

It's premised on the notion that for 99.999% of people, they're not going to bother going through any amount of hassle to bolster votes artificially. It works, it's not worth the time or effort to game content and comments that are modest in traffic and throw-away in nature. The only way it's worth gaming, is on front pages like Reddit where there's a massive simultaneous concentration of traffic.

Not just Reddit, HN derives tremendous value from quality commenting.

Commenting with zero accountability (authenticated accounts, voting, flagging, whatever) is basically doomed to be awful and a net negative to the service.

"Very likely to be" - yes, definitely. "Doomed to be" - not even nearly. There are blog communities I've been a part of that knock HN comments out of the ring, with zero friction to comment (a name and email address are required, but that email address is never validated). It's about moderation and caring enough to grow a community, not the specific mechanism you use to do that.

There's a big difference between being "logged into" YouTube and signing up for Google+.

This just completes Googles utter failure with Google Video and YouTube. They never understood why Google Video failed, and YouTube remains a steaming pile of shit under Google's ownership. And it's getting worse.