Hoping To Improve People Search, Google Launches “Profile Results”

Ever searched for yourself on Google and come away dissatisfied, especially if someone else you share a name with seems to dominate the results? Ever looked for someone else and been disappointed that you couldn't find the person you wanted? Google's new "Profile Results" launching today aim to correct both problems. Since the end of 2007, Google has allowed people to create Google Profile pages for use with certain Google services. For example, if you created content in Google Maps, your Google Profile let you share who you were with others using that service. The same profile also [...]

Filed in: Features: General, Google: Accounts & Profiles, Google: OneBox, Plus Box & Direct Answers, Google: OpenSocial, Google: Search Customization, How To: SEO, Legal: Privacy, Search Engines: People Search, Top News


Google Friend Connect Introduces Social Widgets For Site Owners

Contrary to some earlier reports, Google's new Friend Connect, launching today, is not focused on data portability or a direct answer to MySpace "Data Availability" or the new Facebook Connect. While there's a data portability dimension, it's focused on the flip side of the equation: site owners who want to make their sites more "social." Accordingly, it's more like a Ning competitor. Right now Friend Connect is in a very limited beta with a few "white listed" sites. However, eventually, site owners will be able go to a wizard (available here later today), select "social gadgets" or modules, [...]

Filed in: Facebook, Google: Gadgets, Google: OpenSocial


Mine The Web’s Socially-Tagged Links: Google Social Graph API Launched

Did you know there's a way to tag links on pages to indicate social connections? I'd heard about this vaguely, but you can bet there's going to be much more public awareness and potential use, thanks to Google launching its new Google Social Graph API. Now available, the API allows developers to discover socially-labeled links on pages and generate connections between them. "We want to make the connections searchable. We think there are a few things people will do with that. We think they'll build some [social linking] exploration tools," said David Glazer, a director of enginee [...]

Filed in: Google: APIs, Google: OpenSocial


Google’s Marissa Mayer On Social Search / Search 4.0

VentureBeat has a nice Q&A with Google's Marissa Mayer on how the search engine is considering using social data to improve its search results -- what I've described as "Search 4.0" as a generational jump in my Search 3.0 article from earlier this year. Some highlights below: Social search is hard, in that many searches are sensitive, so letting people in your network know what you are looking for raises serious privacy issues.   Google might try doing more with labeling or tagging results as a way to implement social search. Marissa talked about the existing Google Co [...]

Filed in: Google: OpenSocial, Google: Web History & Search History, Google: Web Search, Search 4.0, Search Engines: Social Search Engines


Google The Stealth Social Network?

Google's plan to socialize its various applications continues. Google Operating System has spotted code in Gmail that may lead to a Facebook-style news feed of status updates from your Gmail contacts. More about this and Google's continued "stealth social network" moves below. Back in September, Google launched a friends update feature on Orkut. Activity Streams & Other Social Nuggets From Leaked Google Video covers this plus how Google is working to create "activity streams" for all of its products as a way to make them more social and akin to Facebook. In October, [...]

Filed in: Google: Gmail, Google: OpenSocial


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