Google has launched the long awaited plus one (+1) button to compete head on with Facebook’s like button.

It’s evident with the release of the Google plus one button that search is getting social, so now you may ask but how does the plus one button work? To put it simple it works just like the Facebook like button would work, but instead of recommending the item you plus one’d on Facebook, Google will show these recommendation in search results to your friends and contacts.

The Google plus one button is available to everybody to use on their websites from today and embedding it is really simple as well. Simply head over to Google.com/+1button and grab the embedding code, it also comes in an array of different sizes.

For more information check out the Google plus one video

In an attempt to make Google more real-time, the search engine giant on Wednesday introduced a new feature called Google Instant.

Google Instant makes searching the web faster by bringing up search results as you type in your query. As you type in your query into the Google search box, the search displays a list of suggested phrases you are likely to search for and brings up the search results for the top suggested phrase.

Pretty cool new feature, but kind of useless for me as I make use of the Chrome address bar to enter my search queries. Adding another step to get to my search results with Google Instant is a bit cumbersome, would be cool though if Google could build this into Chrome somehow.

To test out Google Instant for yourself head on over to Google.com and start typing in your search query.

Twitter has lately rolled out a few changes to help them monetize the micro blogging service and one can not help but wonder if the latest changes has also got something to do with them trying to rake in the bucks.

Upon searching Twitter this morning I discovered that the Social Networking service now offers account suggestions based on your search terms, I was searching for WordPress related stuff and at the top of my search results appeared a bar under the heading Name Results showing three keyword related Twitter accounts.

I tested the functionality with numerous keywords and it seems that currently it is just suggesting top accounts based on the keyword you are searching for.

But could this be more than a follow suggestion for the future? I tend to think so, my prediction is that Twitter will start selling Named Results based on keywords to account holders. If you think about it this is something that one really needs, I find myself often searching for stuff on Twitter without knowing there is an Twitter account somewhere that is related to my search query.

So what is your thoughts? Will Twitter use this new Named Results to help monetize the Social Networking service?

Mobile and apps are today what the dot-com bubble was back in the late 90′s, and it comes to no surprise that Google knows this and that’s why they are now introducing apps in its search results.

Normally when you are looking for a certain app to do something you would like, you set out to Google it and then read up on it. Great news is that Google now makes it even easier to get your hands on the actual app.

From now on if you visit Google.com from you Android powered device or iPhone and search for an app, Google will now provide you with special links and content at the top of the search results. These links will enable you to go directly to the Android Market or iPhone App Store to download the app.

Some of the application’s basic details will also be listed on the results page like its rating, price and who published it.

Unfortunately us in South Africa will have to wait a bit longer for this feature as it is currently only available for US users, I believe it’s got something to do with the fact that we can’t get paid apps in the Android Market, not sure about IPhone App Store. Hopefully we will see this soon as I see this as a real handy feature.

A few month back when Microsoft launched their brand new search engine Bing, the only thing I liked about the search engine was the images search options, something google images lacked.

Now a few month after Google announced their plans for search options on images, they rolled it out.

This new feature offers quick access to existing tools, including search by color and image type. Color search will find images that are only in color or only in black and white, or even images that contain a specific color, such as red, pink, or green. Type search is a great way to narrow down your results if you are looking for a specific kind of image, such as a photo, clip art, line drawing or face.

Google also revamped their size search. In addition to choosing from commonly searched-for sizes, now you can search for an exact image size or any image larger than a certain size. You can find images of practically any size, including 70 megapixels or more.

The new layout makes it faster and easier to combine and toggle between options. It also makes it easier for Google to add additional image search options in the future, so keep your eyes peeled. Just click “Show options…” in the blue bar on the search results page to try out any of these tools.

While our eyes was full of Bing, another search engine entered the market silently.

Collecta the brand new search engine went live on 18 June 2009 without any big bangs or heavy marketing. You are probably asking so what makes Collecta different than Google or Bing or Yahoo? Collecta is a search engine with a new take on searching, it searches the web in a way no other search engine does. Collecta is a real-time search engine, crawling the web as you enter the keywords and spitting out the results in real-time.

The web is alive with real-time information. So why search a stale archive? Collecta monitors the update streams of news sites, popular blogs and social media, and Flickr, so we can show you results as they happen. Give it a try.