Google+ Adds Stars To Bookmark Memorable Posts [Update: Sadly Not]

Google is rolling out the ability to "star" posts in Google+, as part of the company's continued tweaks of the new social network. The option – which is not currently available on all accounts, but which seemingly began to appear when users accessed Google+ on Sunday night – works much as it does in Gmail, keeping a list of starred posts for easier location later.Update: Unfortunately it looks like this is an extension, rather than an official update. More details after the cut.

As well as the new star button, which is found just underneath the drop-down menu in the top right hand corner of each post, there is a "Starred" option added to the bottom of the circles list in the left menu list from which you can review them. The addition addresses a frequent criticism of Facebook, in that it can be difficult to return to a particularly useful or meaningful topic at a later date, without having to scroll through the timeline.

There's no word from Google as to when everybody will get access to the bookmarking feature, but we're guessing it'll progressively roll out to users in the first half of this week. As you can see from the screenshot above, the Google+ color scheme has been modified slightly too, adding greater definition between the menu list and each individual post.

[via Google+ - thanks Craig!]

Update: The functionality is in fact courtesy of Usability Boost for Google+, a Chrome browser extension, updated with star support in the latest version, v1.5. Good news is that you can have the stars today by installing Chrome/the extension; bad news is that it's not service-wide, so if you're not using your own browser then the stars won't be present. We're guessing Google will roll something similar out natively sooner rather than later, since starring is one of the more useful elements of the Gmail experience. [Thanks to everyone who flagged this up!]