Coming to a Website Near You: Google ‘+1′ Sharing Button - wired.com

Coming to a Website Near You: Google ‘+1′ Sharing Button
By Ryan Singel

Google expanded on Wednesday the reach of its new sharing button, dubbed “+1″, introducing a version that companies can add to their websites, alongside Facebook and Twitter’s now ubiquitous Like and Tweet This buttons.

The button has little benefit currently, but it’s clearly part of the infrastructure for a bigger project — Google’s long-rumored social networking competitor to Facebook. It’s like putting a way to fill your cart before the cart and horse.

The button allows signed-in Google users to recommend the page to their friends and contacts, who can see the vote and a thumbnail photo of the voter if the page shows up in search. Early partners include media outlets such as Bloomberg, Reuters, The Washington Post and Mashable, and the widely used sharing plug-in ShareThis, which makes a sharing toolbar bloggers and publications can just drop into their site. Extending that reach, the button will also be on YouTube videos, next to apps in the Android Market, on Blogger blogs, and on its shopping search site...

Read more at wired.com

Add the button to your site by going to google.com/webmasters