Tag Archives: profiles

by Michelle Lentz

Although they’ve apparently been quietly around for a year or so, I only found out about Google profiles last week. Now Google has launched a “Google Me” campaign to get people to fill out their profiles. Profiles will now show up in search results, although I haven’t gotten that to work yet.

To create your Google profile, just search on  “Me”.  The Create Your Own Profile link will display at the top of the search results.

That takes you to your profile page. You can log in with your Gmail account or your can create a new profile with any email address. From there, you can enter contact info (which you can set to display to your contact list only), photo, bio, web sites, and you can pick a vanity URL. If you are using your Gmail account profile, you cannot change this URL, but if you logged in with  a different email address, you can change it to anything you want. Of course, Gmail users have grabbed some of the best ones. I was able to grab my company name “writetechnology” but I had to settle for MichelleLentz01 or some such thing if I wanted my actual name.

I mentioned that I didn’t have much luck finding my Google Profile in search results. Well, according to VentureBeat:

Google’s Joe Kraus explained to us that up to four Google Profiles will appear at the bottom of a results page. For people with common names, the more information you’ve filled out in your Google Profile – the more likely your profile will be selected for display.

So you need to fill out a lot of information. I did not. I figured with my web links, those who want to find me can figure out a way. Perhaps that’s why the Google Profile search results aren’t working for me.

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Sites: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

by Michelle Lentz

Facebook is making changes all over the place. Let’s start with your personal profile page, which will see some changes in the very near future.

As a user, you will now have more control over what you see. You can institute filters (right-hand side) and choose not to see stories from that high school acquaintance you barely remember, but see more stories from family members. You’ll also be able to see what’s happening on your favorite Fan pages right within your stream. You can currently tour the upcoming changes.

Now, if you happen to own a “Fan Page” or brand profile, those pages are changing as well. They’ll now have all the same options as a personal profile page. As far as I can tell, the huge advantage to this is that your fans will now see your updates in their own stream. Yesterday, a number of big name brands went live with their pages, including U2.

You can see the new use of tabs, as well as the Stream tab. There is also a publisher option, which includes status updates for your Fan Page. Soon, the brand profiles will also have the ability to have more than 5,000 friends. You can add tabs to your brand profile. For instance, I added Events, Photos, and Discussion tabs to a non-profit page I run. Updates are becoming real-time, as Facebook is also speeding up the information that fills everyone’s news feeds.

In the past, someone would join a Fan page, but that was often the end of the interaction. With the new ability to have Fan Page activities streamed into a live feed, marketers have a new and authentic way to communicate with, well, Fans. According to Facebook, “Facebook users can easily make connections, comment on posted content and join the online conversations with the famous via their public profiles – just as they can with a family member, friend or colleague.”  Hmm … that sounds very Twitter-like to me.

Public (Fan Page) changes aren’t live yet, but you can go ahead and implement the changes in your own brand profile if you have one. If not, Facebook will make the changes for you in the near future.

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Blogs: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net