We recently reported on what appeared to be a new kind of search experience from Google, called “What Do You Love?”

Google has now officially announced the project, with a bit of explanation about the reason it exists. Google’s Andy Berndt writes on the official blog:

A while back, a few of us wanted to make a little tool that we could use to show just about anybody more of what Google makes. That led to some simple ideas, and then a few more ideas and ultimately, to a challenge: how we could connect people to products they might not know about and may find useful, but make the discovery relevant to them and keep it fun.

Playing about with that challenge produced a website—What Do You Love?—that we hope meets at least some of the challenge by demonstrating how different Google products can show you different things about any particular search query. Like always, you’re the judge, so give it a go. Type in something that you love—polar bears, space travel, pickup trucks, Lady Gaga, early Foghat—whatever strikes your fancy (for some reason, the results for cheese always crack us up, so try that if you’re momentarily stumped). No matter what it is, we’ll give you back something that will let you get even more into what you love.

As I demonstrated previously, results pages will show you a graphical interface with boxes for results in Image Search, Maps, Google Alerts, Patent Search, Google Trends, Product Search, Sketchup, YouTube, Books, Google Translate, Blog Search, Picasa, Google News, Google Earth, Google Mobile Search, etc. It also has boxes for various Google tools.

For example, if I tell Google I love “hamburgers” it will also show Gmail box telling me to email somebody about hamburgers, a Google Calendar box telling me to plan an event about hamburgers, a Google Voice box telling me to call somebody about hamburgers, a Google Moderator box telling me to organize a debate about hamburgers (a fantastic idea), a Google Groups box telling me to start a hamburgers discussion group (another great idea), and a Chrome box telling me to access hamburgers stuff on the web, faster.

As far as sharing goes, you have the option to share results pages via Gmail, Google Buzz, or the +1 button. I’m still wondering when we’re going to see a straight Google+ share button. I know everybody’s talking about Google Buzz, but I hear that Google+ isn’t too shabby.