Google results and Social Media

Google Gets Social

Working in a series of posts about Google and it's integration with Social Media (see the Google +1 Button and the LinkedIn Recommend Button) , I'm seeing more and more twitter shares in Google results featuring twitter, blogger, flickr and others. I also noticed tonight that Google sometimes links people via MyBlogLog.com (a Yahoo! service and Social Media profile aggregator) that was shut down on the 24th May this year - bit of a disappointment as I quite liked it!

Showing up

Here's a search for "Gaggia" that shows what I mean. It shows who in my network shared this link via twitter - I find it quite useful actually. Note that you need to be signed into Google (aka Personalised Search) - otherwise it doesn't work. More importantly, you don't need to be signed into twitter - Google tracks this from your public profile and also from other networking sites.

Staying in control

If you didn't know this, you can control what accounts Google associates you with through a special "My Accounts" control panel. You can link your LinkedIn, twitter, Quora, Plaxo, Yelp, Microsoft, Yahoo and other accounts. If you want to.

Sharing yourself

Most sites I've looked, the "Shared by" tends to be an employee/owner or representative - possibly the first person to share.

Notes: You need to be signed in to use personalised search fully and also to use or see the Google +1 recommend button. You may also still be signed in after you've signed out of Google. Depending on your level on cynicism, Google is trying to either continue helping you or track you - you decide!

Here's the Google Video on it