Taking a cue from Facebook's popular "Like" button, Google (GOOG) on Wednesday announced a new option for its users to recommend individual search results to their friends and contacts.
Google's new program, known as "+1", represents the Mountain View search giant's latest move to capitalize on the growing power of online social networks exercise bike, as it also tries to fend off the increasing competitive threat posed by Facebook and other rivals.
Recommendations have become a key part of online interactions, said industry analyst Hadley Reynolds, director of search and digital marketplace technologies for the IDC research firm. "It's becoming almost a standard of web commerce."
The new program works by letting a Google user click on a "+1" button to recommend a particular search result or search ad; eventually it will let them click on a similar button when they visit a web page. When someone else in that user's circle of contacts conducts a search on a similar topic, they will get the usual list of results and ads, but those endorsed by their friend will be flagged with a note that says their friend "+1'd this."
Google said the recommendations will eventually become one of the factors used to calculate search rankings, although a spokeswoman said it "will take some time to figure out how strong a signal or how useful it is."
But after the recent outcry over privacy concerns related to its Google Buzz initiative last year, Google stressed that "+1" has safeguards to protect users from revealing information they don't intend to share.
Coincidentally, Google reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over the Buzz issue on Wednesday.
"You have the option to never '+1' something," said Google spokeswoman Katie Watson. Users who click on the button will be reminded that their recommendation will be made public to others, she added. "If you're not prepared to share it with the world, you shouldn't '+1' it, and we're being very explicit about that."
Users must create a Google account and a profile to participate in the program. If a recommendation autoclave comes from outside their circle of contacts, users may see how many people endorsed a site, but not the endorsers' names.
The new program expands on earlier moves that Google has taken to add social networking features to its services. Since 2009, for example, users who search while logged into their Google account have been able to see results that are flagged if they include blog posts,Twitter links or other content created by friends in their circle.
Google plans to eventually show "+1" endorsements from users' contacts in other public networks, such as Twitter or Flickr. For now, participants will only see endorsements from the people listed in their Gmail contacts, Gmail chat buddy list or people they're following on Google Reader or Buzz. The program won't include Facebook friends because Facebook does not make that information public.
Facebook has a similar program that lets its users recommend posts, pages or even ads to their friends, by clicking a "Like" button. It recently launched a partnership with Microsoft that lets Facebook "likes" show up in results from Microsoft's Bing search engine.
The power of recommendations can be seen in their increasing use by a variety of Internet companies, from Amazon to Yelp, said IDC's Reynolds. "Many web commerce businesses are now much more dependent on the presence of recommendations, and the tone of recommendations, than they have ever been before."
The exploding popularity of Facebook has created a huge audience for advertisers, which analysts say could pose an increasing threat to Google's ad business. That's led to speculation that Google is attempting to build its own social network with programs like "+1."
But at this point, Reynolds noted that Google still dominates the Internet search business, handling cold room nearly two-thirds of all searches in the United States.
"Having that kind of audience, that can now consume a recommendation feature, gives Google yet another way of influencing commerce that it's not clear to me that Facebook can match," said Reynolds.
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