Update: And by third time, I mean fourth. @sixdeaftaxis points out that Google also previously bombed with Orkut.

With much fanfare, Google announced today its new +1 button — a way to recommend Web sites to friends using Google search. With this new +1 button, Google says “you get the right recommendations (because they come from people who matter to you).” It functions similarly to Facebook’s “like” button or Twitter’s “retweet” button, but is built around recommendations from people in your Google network — for now.

Is Google finally on the path to successfully building its own social network? Is the +1 button an indication that we are on the verge of finally seeing Google’s “social layer?” Google first attempted its own social network with Wave, but the project was short-lived and Google ended development its development in August 2010. Not long after, Google Buzz also landed on its face. As noted by TechCrunch, Google Buzz was shrouded with privacy and security issues that landed Google in trouble with the FTC. Once that was smoothed over, there was still a low uptake — very few people were using the service at all. The information fed to Buzz users by Buzz users was otherwise useless with low engagement. If this was indeed Google’s second attempt at a social “layer,” there wasn’t much social about it. The lack of success by Google to conjure up a sort of social network via Buzz was obvious by the end of 2010.

Is the third, (edit: fourth), time the charm for Google? Today, Google launched the new +1 button — an experimental, opt-in feature for Google users to make their search results more social. Google +1 is not exactly a social network in and of itself, but when used it highlights search results recommended from a network comprised of your Google contacts — such as from those you email on Gmail and chat with on Google Talk. If you search for something and a relevant result has been “+1d” by someone in your Google network, that recommended result will be prioritized in the search result list and that person who +1d the link will be noted, with a link to their Google Profile, directly below the search result.

Google could either go big or go home with the +1 button and its social layer. For now, the “network” from which you see +1d searches is restricted to Google-based contacts, which, admittedly, you may have very few of. With the prevalence of social networks like Facebook and Twitter and corporations communicating with CRMs like SalesForce (which integrate chat programs like Yammer), you may never email or chat with a friend or colleague in Google. As a result, many people may not be inclined to use +1, since they won’t see many other people using it and recommending search results. Google already allows Google users to connect Twitter and LinkedIn profiles to impact their social search experience, and Google implies in its announcement of +1 that it may soon integrate these contacts into the network to impact +1 results, too. This would be, of course, critical to the eventual widespread adoption of usage of the +1 button and whatever “social layer” Google is building, since most people are connected to people mostly on other social networks — not primarily via Google. What will really make an impact, though is if Google can integrate Facebook into this “social layer” because then pretty much everyone will automatically be connected. Bing has, however, partnered with Facebook, so we’ll see how long we have to hold our breath for this to happen.

Google has kept mum about what’s really in the future for +1, but if Google can do the +1 button right — and build out a “social layer” rather than just try to build its own — the third (again, fourth) time really could be the charm for Google.