Do you mind explaining more fully how this is useless?
I'm sure there are many people who don't have a Facebook account who have a Google account. Such people could use this to create their own profile page. Also, while you can make your Facebook profile searchable if you wish to, Google profiles will likely be given special priority and placement. Not to mention the social search features Google is working on using profiles.
Yes, that was my first impression too. Looks much cleaner, info displayed better. The old ones look a bit stuffed, they highlighted simplicity in the new ones.
I think the reason profile pages tend to use the same layout is because it's an established design pattern now. People already know what to expect when they see a page with that layout.
Edit: Also, Google profiles have had that photo timeline for a while. They added it months before Facebook added it.
For some reason the new profiles don't render correctly in Chrome. It just shows a white page with nothing on it that is much longer than the actual profile page is. Not only that if you view source, it is all there.
Interesting. I just learned about Google Profiles earlier today while reading up about WebFinger and OpenID. Google Profiles also support hCard, the microformat.
Google Profiles don't seem to have much practical use to me besides being useful for standards compliant stuff. I really wish Buzz became popular in place of Twitter, its a much better (and more open) platform in my opinion.
It's one thing to want to have a formal profile for when you're googled. It's another to have your buzz attached to it. They want buzz to catch on so badly.
This seems to be a part of the upcoming social product. IMO the Google brand does not work well with social. No matter how well they execute this product, it will still feel too "efficient".
P.S.: Looks like they invested in eye-candy. try changing your profile picture for an example.
How much do you have to share to not get "To have your profile featured, add more information about yourself" anymore? It's a mystery, and finding out is a pretty dull game.
Google needs to add a little lock to all posts that are private, or indicate which are. I freaked out when I thought some of my picasa albums were visible publicly--and feared that had pulled another buzz. Luckily that's not the case, but it's not immediately obvious.
I had this huge debate with regard to our vision of Google's future today. The question was whether Google should stay focused on developing its distinctive competence: being a superior search solution, and monetize through advertising, or whether it should branch into new ideas such as Checkout functions or even desktop products. Personally, I think it's crucial that Google to strike a balance between external acquisition and internal development for these reasons:
In terms of internal development, Google’s ultimate mission is to serve as a superior search function for people. So due to the saturation of the market in web search and consistency with company culture, I believe Google should leverage core tech to expand into niche search markets and strengthen additional platforms. More specifically, google should expand into niche search markets or industries where information needs to be more open and organized, for instance, the arts industry, the fashion industry, etc. In additionally, I believe small mobile devices will continue to grow in terms of user base, especially in emerging economies where more people could afford such devices. Therefore, creating applications that ties in with its platform should also be a part of Google’s platform development.
Externally, Google, by becoming or adopting the image of Microsoft has brought negative attention to many other high-growth companies, increasing hostility and competition from companies including Microsoft, Ebay, etc. To avoid multiple organizations joining hands to go up against the giant and hence, increasing costs like it has been in the past few years. Google needs to learn to adopt new market in a subtler manner. Instead of creating all functionalities explicitly under Google’s name, acquire small enterprises that serve similar functions and avoid too much publicity during the acquisition.
Item number 8 of Google's philosophy highlights the importance of going across borders. Neighboring Asian countries such as Japan (38.20% of market share), and South Korea (3% of market share) fancy locally flavored search engines such as Yahoo Japan over Google, seeing it as a form of “cultural imperialism”. In the end of the day, Google is user-based and a service product. Creating fear among users, in addition to competitors, weakens the potential growth of all other platform products it is developing. The solution to this ties in with the discrete acquisition suggestion- to create products that are culturally sensitive.
So instead of attempting to produce additional breakthrough products, I believe Google should keep in mind its core philosophies and focus in, with cultural sensitivity in mind, strengthening additional platforms and expanding into niche search market.
What you're forgetting is that social networks are a threat to Google's primary business because they offer better signals for/an alternative to search. I think the strategic play for Google is own all the social signals, or at least have them be in open formats that they can crawl.
which is what google is doing, especially with its launch of "real time" search which includes recent tweets. There are two paths google could take- to venture on trying to own all the social signals (which is what bing is trying to do!) or work on securing its image as the "objective" and professional platform. There are rumors that google will start its own "facebook"/ social network tool, and many users have voted against it, claiming that they want to keep gmail and other google usage professional rather than social.
Wow!
This is a major move.
In a simultaneous attack on fb and linkedin.
The fight for the "profile" page is on.
It is like the internet revolution all over again, but for the masses. Most people with any sense in them already have a ~uname/ somewhere and //that// is their profile. But for "monsieur tout le monde" it is too complicated to order hosting and install wordpress on it.
This is why everyone absolutely //loves// facebook -- because suddenly they can heave their "own website". Sure its just a wall and mostly used for other people to spy on you, but you can spy on them too so isn't it a great deal?
This seems like a sure flop to me because it is essentially an escalation of rights from knowing my email address to knowing a bunch of other things about me. Not cool.
On a different note, it is funny to see Google try something and fail... we have gotten used to their superpower, maybe they are not so strong after all. Has the Goliath gotten slow?
How is this going to affect search results when someone googles my name ? This could be very useful because I have a very common name and it would be nice to get bumped up a bit because I have a google profile.
36 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 75.4 ms ] threadI'm sure there are many people who don't have a Facebook account who have a Google account. Such people could use this to create their own profile page. Also, while you can make your Facebook profile searchable if you wish to, Google profiles will likely be given special priority and placement. Not to mention the social search features Google is working on using profiles.
Edit: Also, Google profiles have had that photo timeline for a while. They added it months before Facebook added it.
Note that this will only work for users that have activated Buzz
I am running Chrome 11.0.686.1 dev on OS X 10.6
http://maps.google.com/
https://profiles.google.com/u/0/
https://groups.google.com/
Google Profiles don't seem to have much practical use to me besides being useful for standards compliant stuff. I really wish Buzz became popular in place of Twitter, its a much better (and more open) platform in my opinion.
http://www.google.com/profiles/<username>; is showing the old style profile while https://profiles.google.com/<username>; is in the new style.
Bummer because, when editing my profile in the new style, it tells me that the correct URL is the first.
P.S.: Looks like they invested in eye-candy. try changing your profile picture for an example.
In terms of internal development, Google’s ultimate mission is to serve as a superior search function for people. So due to the saturation of the market in web search and consistency with company culture, I believe Google should leverage core tech to expand into niche search markets and strengthen additional platforms. More specifically, google should expand into niche search markets or industries where information needs to be more open and organized, for instance, the arts industry, the fashion industry, etc. In additionally, I believe small mobile devices will continue to grow in terms of user base, especially in emerging economies where more people could afford such devices. Therefore, creating applications that ties in with its platform should also be a part of Google’s platform development.
Externally, Google, by becoming or adopting the image of Microsoft has brought negative attention to many other high-growth companies, increasing hostility and competition from companies including Microsoft, Ebay, etc. To avoid multiple organizations joining hands to go up against the giant and hence, increasing costs like it has been in the past few years. Google needs to learn to adopt new market in a subtler manner. Instead of creating all functionalities explicitly under Google’s name, acquire small enterprises that serve similar functions and avoid too much publicity during the acquisition.
Item number 8 of Google's philosophy highlights the importance of going across borders. Neighboring Asian countries such as Japan (38.20% of market share), and South Korea (3% of market share) fancy locally flavored search engines such as Yahoo Japan over Google, seeing it as a form of “cultural imperialism”. In the end of the day, Google is user-based and a service product. Creating fear among users, in addition to competitors, weakens the potential growth of all other platform products it is developing. The solution to this ties in with the discrete acquisition suggestion- to create products that are culturally sensitive.
So instead of attempting to produce additional breakthrough products, I believe Google should keep in mind its core philosophies and focus in, with cultural sensitivity in mind, strengthening additional platforms and expanding into niche search market.
It is like the internet revolution all over again, but for the masses. Most people with any sense in them already have a ~uname/ somewhere and //that// is their profile. But for "monsieur tout le monde" it is too complicated to order hosting and install wordpress on it.
This is why everyone absolutely //loves// facebook -- because suddenly they can heave their "own website". Sure its just a wall and mostly used for other people to spy on you, but you can spy on them too so isn't it a great deal?
This seems like a sure flop to me because it is essentially an escalation of rights from knowing my email address to knowing a bunch of other things about me. Not cool.
On a different note, it is funny to see Google try something and fail... we have gotten used to their superpower, maybe they are not so strong after all. Has the Goliath gotten slow?