
Google is at it again.
+1 is its latest attempt to become relevant on the social web. Google is taking a page from Twitter’s tweet and Facebook’s like button playbook. Soon you will find a new icon next to the magnifying glass in the Google search results. The +1 icon will be Google’s version of the share button.
Search customers on Google will be able to share specific search results, as well as ads that they like, with their online community.
Will Google track this data? Of course it will.
How this button’s data will be used remains to be seen. It could be part of the search, social graph, or ad display algorithms. Google also will share the public Google profile images of the people who like the search results.
The +1 button also serves as a social bookmarking service by displaying all of your favorite search results in your Google profile.
This service will give photographers one more opportunity to share their images. When the webpage +1 button is released, I recommend applying it to portfolio pages.
Right now it is an opt-in (and slow) rollout by Google. You can watch video about the button at http://www.google.com/+1/button/