Wednesday, 18 July 2012

New life in Google+

Have Google finally found way of breathing life into their seemingly terminal social network Google+? Well, possibly. Just possibly.


This morning, the first evidence of some potentially deeper integration between Google Search and Google+ was spotted in the UK. A new option in the search results that showed up next to the URL, displayed a “Share” link.  Upon hitting the button, users are prompted to share directly to Google+ from the results pages.  The result is included as a link and users are given the ability to add a comment:






This is the first time that Google have integrated their full "sharing" function within their search results and could spark a take up of the social network among Google's search users. And as we all know, there are plenty of those.


This is the first time that Google+ has really found a way of differentiating itself from Facebook by leveraging their core search asset. Time will tell whether or not it's enough to drive a change of consumer behaviour, but it's certainly an intelligent move for a company desperate to tap into Facebook's 900 million strong population. 



Google’s Product Manager Sean Liu confirmed that this is an official product rollout. He wrote:


"Starting today, we’re rolling out a new experiment to show a Share link in Google search in place of the +1 button, making it easier for you to share a great website with your friends. Now when you click the Share link next to a result, you can add a comment about why you found it useful. You can then choose if you want to share it publicly or just to your Circles and it will post to your Google+ stream, making it easier for you to share directly from the search results page. This will appear for those searching in English."

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