Google Finally Takes Social Search Global, +1 Up Next

Ever since its launch in late 2009, Google’s Social Search feature was only available in the United States. Over the course of the next week, however, Google will finally roll this feature out globally. Social Search shows you what your friends and contacts shared on public networks like Twitter, Flickr, Google Buzz and Google Reader and displays this information on relevant search results pages. In addition to bringing Social Search to the rest of the world outside of the U.S., Google also announced that it aims to roll out its experimental +1 feature globally as soon as it can.

Google announcement comes just a few days after Microsoft’s Bing announced its improved Facebook-based social search experience that is mostly based on data Facebook’s and Bing’s users share through the ubiquitous ‘like’ button. Given the failure of Google Buzz, Google’s closest competitor to Facebook’s ‘like’ is +1, but until Google rolls out the actual +1 buttons, it will be hard to say if the Mountain View-based search giant can actually compete with Facebook in this market. Until then, Microsoft has the upper hand when it comes to social search as Google – unlike Bing – does not have access to privately shared Facebook ‘like’ data.

To see a full list of your Google connections, click here. If you’re not familiar with how Google Social Search works, here is a video that explains its functionality in more detail: