Forum for Local Internet Marketing Experts - Google's approach to social media, labeled as +1

Google just launched their take on Social Media w/ their latest product, "+1". Apparently, this is their approach to compete with the likes of the partnership to Facebook and Bing Q3 last year. After all of the rumors about Google building a "rival" network to Facebook, this initially appears to be a bit underwhelming. However, considering the fact that Google will integrate this into their site for existing users, who are already on their site, this could mean big things for them.
With +1, users will in fact see a "+1" next to their search results allowing them to recommend sites to their friends and allowing these results to populate on their friends' search results page. Google explained this service:

So how do we know which +1’s to show you? Like social search, we use many signals to identify the most useful recommendations, including things like the people you are already connected to through Google (your chat buddies and contacts, for example). Soon we may also incorporate other signals, such as your connections on sites like Twitter, to ensure your recommendations are as relevant as possible.

Another interesting note to this, is that users can "+1" Google ads. This adds a complete new element to how effective your AdWords campaign is managed and run.

To me, this doesn't appear to offer any real competition to Facebook to Facebook users other than competing with the Facebook Like button. And according to Google, they plan to offer this feature to website developers. Additionally, Google had some additional comments to say about this,

As we’ve already been saying, we’re committed to making the web more people-centric, and we’ve been gradually giving people new ways to share things and interact within our products. This is just another example of how we’re centering our products around the millions of people who use them every day.

Our focus is on improving our search results–to ensure we get the most relevant results to our users as quickly as possible. Relationships and recommendations are one way to help us achieve that goal–and this is what today’s announcement is all about.

In Google's efforts to personalize user search experience, this appears to be a great step forward. My hats off to Google, and I look forward this and more to come soon. Check out the video below for a better understanding of this.

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Google's approach to social media, labeled as +1