Google Maps: +1 equals +11K?

Pursuant to the goal of making their +1 button ubiquitous on the internet, Google launched the +1 button for custom Google Maps earlier this week.

Interesting and useful feature, I am admit. However, it is broken. It also exposes a major bug in +1'ing, if I may (use the gerund form of the verb Google is trying to make out of +1). Let us see how.

As soon as I read this post on the official blog by the Google Earth and Maps team I jumped into my maps to have a first-hand experience of the +1 button.

I went to My Maps under My Places, and picked up the public Bangalore to Goa route map I had created before I was driving to Goa. I was pleasantly surprised to see 11K people had +1'd it. Believing Bangalore-Goa to be a highly sought-after route map, I tried Bangalore-Ooty, 11K again. This could not be true. Another random map, still 11 thousand. There was definitely something wrong.

11 thousand people +1'd this

I +1 one of the maps and visit the +1's listed on my Google+ profile. I have maps.google.com as one of my +1's, but that link takes me to the Google Maps home page! My custom map is nowhere in sight.

Only when I go back to my maps, get the link of my shared map, open that link in a new browser tab, and +1 it, that I get to see my custom map in my +1 list. And the map now shows the true count of +1's, which is actually only +1. I am the only one who liked my map yet. I should have suspected that anyway, a route map could be that popular in two days only if it showed directions from the White House to the three-story mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Also, my map had only 9 views and 11,000 people had already liked it!

Maps +1's are based on urls

There were two +1's in my list pointing to the Google Maps homepage. They had two different urls: one was http://maps.google.com and the other http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=ll, with a few extra parameters, which were anyway the default values.

This means when you +1 a map, you actually +1 the url, and not the map. So if you arrived at this custom map from a link that the creator, or a +1'er forwarded, you may see the correct +1 count. If you arrived at the map in-page after you reached maps.google.com, there are high chances that you may not see the correct number of people who +1'd it.

If Google cannot properly integrate the +1 button with one of their core applications, how can they expect other sites to do so. And this is not the first time Google had a sub-standard testing before launching out a feature. I am highly disappointed.

That's a -1 for Google. -11K actually.