14 DAY TRIAL // Google has confirmed that it's launching the +1 button for websites later today. Google has said that a button for third-party sites was on its way, but it didn't say when this would happen. Now, thanks to a launch partner leaking the news earlier than Google intended, the company had to confirm it.
The official announcement is still not live, but the essential has been known. Soon enough, everyone will be able to add a +1 button to their sites. The button will act similar to Facebook's Like button and will enable visitors to show their interest.
Once you start using the feature, your friends will start seeing your likes in their search results. The premise is simple, having recommendations from your friends will make search results more relevant to you since they're coming from a trusted source.
This is why the Facebook Like button has become so popular and why everyone is trying to integrate social features into their products. Until now, Google had the +1 button on its search engine, if you enabled the experimental feature in the first place, so usage hasn't been high.
Starting to see the +1 button pop up on other website should drive up engagement, but Google still faces an uphill battle. Google doesn't have a healthy social graph and most people are not used to 'connecting' with their friends on Google.
So, if users don't care about the +1 button, websites won't care about it either. Granted, most people embedded Buzz buttons after the service launched, so maybe anything with the Google logo on it will get some attention. Of course, the failure of Buzz may have made the same people reticent about implementing other Google social tools. Whatever the case, we should find out soon enough.
Update: Google has rolled out +1 button info pages for both users and webmasters.