Google put an ad on its minimalistic front page for the first time yesterday, and soon it will start giving away more of that desirable real estate … for birthday reminders. Yep, within the next few days, any Google+ member performing a search on Google.com in English will see birthday reminders in the upper righthand corner of the page, where Google+ notifications already show up. The notifications will appear whenever anyone in your Google+ circles has a birthday, explains Irene Chung. (Don't want to share your birthday with all the people in your circles? You can change your settings.)
The Next Web sees this move—"integrating its social functionality into its most prized product"—as more evidence "that Google has gone completely social as a company," writes Drew Olanoff. The weird part: It seems the new feature will only be available on Google's main search page, not on the actual Google+ stream. (More Google stories.)
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