Google has recently announced a new sharing/suggestion service akin to Digg votes and Facebook Likes called +1. Yesterday they rolled out the button on the web-based Android Market, so you can promote particular apps to your friends and the world at large. This may smell an awful lot like Buzz, but it’s a little different in that you can see the grand sum of all +1s for any given app, not just ones your friends suggest, and there’s no status or text to go along with it, just a straight upvote.
Combined with the recent addition of featured developers, Google’s doing a lot of good stuff to separate and promote quality applications from the growing mass of Android apps currently available. It doesn’t seem like Android apps are showing up in Google search results like they used to, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see them make a comeback complete with the number of +1 votes rather than (or in addition to) the average five-star rating. Google is already showing +1 ranks in existing web search results if there are any available, and providing those sites with added visibility if they were suggested by any of your friends.
Head on over to the Android Market in your web browser, and you can start +1ing all of your favourite apps, and have them show up in your Google Profile. Anyone going to give this a shot?
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