Not wanting to be left out of the social following fun, Twitter and Google have both announced their own “social buttons” today.  Actually, the seemingly synchronized event happened by accident after Google’s “+1″ button was leaked to TechCrunch.  Their official announcement is expected tomorrow, and the well known AddThis tool will be the first integrated partner to serve it up.

Because of the early release, we don’t actually know a whole lot about Google’s button, but you can bet you’ll be seeing this social metric as part of your search results in the near future.

Twitters “Follow” button was officially released by the company today with 50 major websites integrating the button to coincide with the launch.  I figured this was part of a beta test, but it looks like anybody can go and configure their own follow button right now.  Before you had to leave the site you were on to view their twitter page, and then click the follow button.  With this button, you can follow without ever leaving the page you’re on. Here is a preview of the follow button on IMDB.

Neither of these buttons were very surprising, especially since both companies already utilize similar buttons for other features like “Google Buzz” and retweeting stories on Twitter with the click of your mouse.  Twitters follow button is a handy feature, but the “Google +1″ button could be a game changer depending on how much statistical power those votes wield in the search algorithms.  In the beginning however, Google most likely won’t put much, if any, stock in the rankings as they work out the kinks and try to secure the system against webmasters trying to game the system.

So now we have two more buttons added to an already huge lineup of social media buttons that you see crammed onto pages all around the web.  These buttons will probably make their way onto most websites because of their massive following, but at some point you have to think older buttons like Digg and Delicious will be pushed aside as designers start to run out of room and users start to get button blindness™.  As you’ll notice, I used the trademark symbol on the term “button blindess” because I just made it up and now I OFFICALLY own it.  If you’d like to use it, speak to my lawyers :)

Emused

Ever wonder how much money Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook really have in the bank? If the reports today are true, apparently it’s a whole lot. The buzz around the web has Facebook trying to buy out Skype for up to $4 Billion stemming from an original story from Reuters. Nothing has been confirmed at this time, but it’s obvious there are moves being made and Skype appears to be trying to fire up a king-sized bidding war between Facebook and Google along with other unnamed companies.

Skype has been in the process of trying to secure more funding since August of 2010 when they filed for an IPO. When they filed for the IPO it was released that only 6 percent of their users paid for the service in any way. The IPO was put on hold in October due to the hiring of Cisco’s former senior vice president Tony Bates as the companies new CEO.

Logic would point towards Facebook being the most likely candidate since Google simply doesn’t need Skype as much as Facebook does. Google already has Google Talk and they just announced last week that video chat will be native in an upcoming release of the Android App. Facebook could benefit more from the purchase, but that doesn’t mean they could outbid big G. Google loves to gobble up companies that could be beneficial to a competitor, and they have the money to do it.

Facebook still hasn’t proven to have a profit model that exploits their massive popularity, and they would now be buying a company in the same boat which is why I think it’s much more likely that we see a partnership deal if Facebook and Skype to strike a deal. With Google and Apple both making strides in expanding their own mobile video chat and other VoIP solutions, Facebook may feel like they need this deal to keep pace so it will be interesting to see if Zuckerberg decides to step up with a big acquisition, or continue to develop their own technologies.

Another interesting piece that could add more credence to the story is that Skype has already integrated with Facebook in their latest version 5 Windows release. The software displays a tab for Facebook users to chat or call their friends directly from Skype.

Let us know if you think Facebook actually has the cash to pull off the purchase, or if you’d rather see another company end up with the technology.

Emused