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Google Unveils +1

Google’s latest effort to find its way into the social networking sphere has just been unveiled. The Google +1 is the company’s version of Facebook’s “Like” button. The +1 button will now start showing up next to search results and on all the pages on the web, and by clicking on it; you will be recommending a site or a page. What’s more, the search results and ads that you see will also tell you if any of your contacts has vouched for or recommended them.

Many people feel that this is just another one of Google’s attempts to get into the social sphere, what with most of their other attempts falling flat. How can it be that a company as huge as Google and as innovative as it can fail so miserably at making it in the social networking sphere?

At the end of the day, it all boils down to vision. Google has so far been suffering from an acute case of far-sightedness in the social sphere. Right from its early days, Google has sought to organize information and make it easily accessible. There were intimidating amounts of information that needed to be channeled and tamed, and So Google set out to collect information and content from libraries, geographic databases, art galleries – and any place that collects knowledge – and has found ways to deliver this information to audiences on computers and Smartphone’s.

But while Google was setting all of this in motion, it failed to consider the fact that the most important information is its audiences immediate personal thoughts, desires and choices as well as their insatiable desire to share their likes and dislikes with their friends, family and even with strangers! And this is where Facebook and other social networking sites excel, while Google, despite launching many sites like Google Wave, Google Buzz and YouTube, has failed. Yes, Google makes all information accessible but people still prefer to get information on sites like Facebook and Twitter.

However, we’ll just have to watch and see whether the +1 service is capable of reversing Google’s social misfortunes.

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