The Thanksgiving Doodle Had One More Easter Egg, a Share on Google+ Button

On Thanksgiving, Google ran the traditional turkey-featuring doodle. It's no surprise, Google has had a Thanksgiving doodle every year since 1998, you can check out all of them in this gallery. In fact, the first Thanksgiving doodle was the second ever doodle ran by Google.

There is a history then and, at first glance, this year's doodle isn't breaking away from tradition. Sure, it was a lot more elaborate than previous ones, it's an animated and interactive doodle.

Users could customize the look of the Google turkey and even uncover sets of matching outfits, such as astronaut, football player and so on.

But interactive doodles are hardly something new, Google has been creating more and more elaborate doodles especially in the past couple of years, making use of what modern browsers and web technology can do.

However, there is something special about this year's Thanksgiving doodle and it's not the colorful feathers, the doodle includes a Google+ share button and it's a very ingenious idea.

The button doesn't feel tacked on just for the sake of it. Because users can create their own unique turkey, they may be naturally inclined to share their creation with friends. If Google hadn't included a share button, some people would have been upset or, at least, disappointed.

There should be about 50 million people on Google+ at this point and their number is growing. And it's not just your tech-savvy, geek friends, just look at who's the most popular person on the site.

Until very recently, the most followed profile was that of Google CEO and tech world superstar Larry Page. But this week, Britney Spears took the crown and she's not looking back.

Google+ is going mainstream, slowly, and things like adding a share link to fun doodles are only going to help. Granted, there is also a "link" button so you can share via email, twitter or, gasp, even Facebook. But you have a share on Google+ box built into the main Google homage, you don't have that for the "link" button.