Google takes on Facebook ‘likes’ with ‘+1’ social tag

With Facebook evolving into a major rival, Google is meeting the challenge by building its own social network centered on its lucrative search business.


Google’s newly launched “+1” (plus one) service is Google’s version of the Facebook “like” button or Twitter’s “retweet” feature. It lets people who connect to friends using their Google Profile to share their recommendations for websites and online advertisers on search results.
Google hopes to eventually expand the feature to include a person’s friends on other social networks.
The service has the potential of changing the way people use Google’s search engine. Today, search queries are answered through machine algorithms. In the future, the website recommendations of people and their friends could also play a role in how results are displayed.
“To recommend something, all you have to do is click +1 on a webpage or ad you find useful,” explained Google Product Manager Rob Spiro in a March 30 blog post. “These +1’s will then start appearing in Google’s search results.”
Google +1 also helps to further personalize web searches for you and your friends, by pushing search results that have been liked by the people in your social circles higher up in the search results page.
“The beauty of +1’s is their relevance – you get the right recommendations (because they come from people who matter to you), at the right time (when you are actually looking for information about that topic) and in the right format (your search results),” said Spiro.
However, Google’s +1 feature is not just relegated to social search results; in the months to come internet users will start seeing +1 appear on websites around the web.
Google is amassing an army of friends and is poised to fight its rivals for control of the social web.
+1 will be connected to your Google account and profile. Your +1 network of friends will initially include people you have already connected with via Google’s sites (for example your buddies on Google Chat or people listed in your Gmail contacts).
“If you want to know who you’re connected to, and how, visit the “Social Circle and Content” section of the Google Dashboard,” advised Spiro.
Your Social Circle may one day be expanded to include people you have connected with on sites like Twitter, commented Google, “to ensure your recommendations are as relevant as possible.”
Just like your tweets on Twitter, your +1s are public, cautions Google on the +1 opt-in page. “They can appear in Google search results, on ads, and sites across the web.”
Should you ever want to manage your +1s, there is a new tab on your Google Profile where you can see and edit the sites you have +1’ed.
To start with, +1 will only appear on a small percentage of Google’s search results, starting in English on Google.com. +1 will then be slowly rolled out to include other Google products and sites across the web over the next weeks and months.
Read more here:
http://www.google.com/+1/button/