Book Sharing Comes to Google+, First Step Towards a Social Google

Google has launched a small but interesting feature which highlights one way the company plans to integrate Google+ with all of its other services. In fact, it's the best example of what Google said it's aiming to do with Google+, add a social layer to its products.

Users can now share a book they found in Google Books with their Google+ friends and the title, cover and details about the book will be added automatically to their post.

"Say you’ve found a hidden gem on auto mechanics for your greasemonkey friends or want to hop down memory lane with Peter Rabbit and your family," Abe Murray, Product Manager, Google Books writes.

"Good news for monkeys and rabbits alike: you can now share info about any of the millions of books in our Google Books index worldwide with your circles on Google+," he announced.

The Google navigational toolbar, which displays a notifications button and a share box if you're a Google+ user, follows you across all Google sites.

The share box enables you to easily share your thoughts regardless of where you are. So far though, that's all it did.

If you're visiting the About page of any book in Google Books, a link to the book, its title and a lot of other info are added to the post, making it trivial to share a book you're reading or plan on buying with your friends.

It's not a huge feature, but it's a great example of what Google can and will do across its properties. The share box will become more than a quick way of writing up a post and will add custom info depending on the page you're on.

Google has said that Google+ is not really a social network (even though it is) but that it's a way of adding a social component and sharing capabilities to everything Google does. Google Books sharing is only the beginning.