Here are a couple of videos from Google we looked at a while back, explaining how to implement authorship markup:

About a month ago, we looked at Google adding circle counts for some authors in search results. Today, they announced this and a couple more changes to go with it. Now, they’re showing circle count, “add to circles,” and comments.

“You should be able to easily engage with and hear more from authors you like, so we’re making that easy by allowing you to add authors to your circles right in search results (this feature is rolling out over the coming weeks),” says Google software engineer Wanda Hung. “Another way you can engage with authors is to comment directly to them on Google+. Now if an author shares an article on Google+ and they get comments on it, you’ll see a link on the search results page to view the comments in Google+.”

Google shows this example:

As we’ve said repeatedly, it’s clear that who you are is more important in Google’s eyes than ever. In August, Google’s Othar Hansson said, “It’s obviously early days, so we hope to use this information and any information as a ranking signal at Google. In this case, we want to get information on credibility of authors from all kinds of sources, and eventually use it in ranking. We’re only experimenting with that now. Who knows where it will go?”

By the way, in terms of comments showing up, don’t forget that there is likely also a Google+-based comments system for sites on the way.

This is an extension of the authorship markup launched earlier this year. What this does is tell Google that your content is associated with you. It shows a picture of you in the search results, and links to your Google Profile. It can help you stand out in search results.

Googles Sagar Kamdar shows how to set this up with your Google profile on the Inside Search blog. “For example, let’s say you write content on a page hosted at http://www.galaxytimes.com. To participate in the authorship program, put your name on your content and your e-mail address.” he says. “Then verify your email address sagark@galaxytimes.com on your Google+ profile.”

On your Google Profile, go to “Edit Profile,” scroll down and click on “work,” click the drop down arrow next to “phone,” click on “email,” and put in your address where it says new contact info. Change the visibility of the section from “only you” to “everyone on the web,” click “save,” and click “done editing.”

Tip: make sure you’re ok with people seeing your email address.

It will be interesting to see how much they add to the authorship element. Recently, they started including circle counts for some users.

Google says the tool makes it easier to set up Google Alerts, and suggests search terms you may wish to monitor, and provides links to resources that offer information on how to control what third-party info is posted about you on the web. Product Manager Andreas Turk writes on the Google Public Policy Blog:

In recent years, it’s become easier and easier to publish information about yourself online, through powerful new platforms like social networking sites and photo sharing services. One way to manage your privacy on these sites is to decide who specifically can see this information, determining whether it is visible to just a few friends, family members or everyone on the web. But, another important decision is choosing how you are identified when you post that information. We have worked hard to build various identity options into Google products. For example, while you may want to identify yourself by name when you post an answer to a question in a forum so that readers know the response is reputable, if you upload videos about a controversial cause you may prefer to post under a pseudonym.

However, your online identity is determined not only by what you post, but also by what others post about you — whether a mention in a blog post, a photo tag or a reply to a public status update. When someone searches for your name on a search engine like Google, the results that appear are a combination of information you’ve posted and information published by others.

As far as I can tell, there’s not a whole lot new going on here. Me on the Web simply shows you what links you have attached to your Google Profile, which you could also see by actually going to your Google Profile (and which you presumably already know, since you set them up in the first place), a link to Google alerts, and a couple of Help Center articles about reputation management. This is all accessible from the Google Dashboard, which there is a good chance you hardly visit. At best, it looks like just another access point for this info. I guess the alerts suggestions could be mildly helpful.

All of that said, Me on the Web certainly can’t hurt anything. If it makes a few more people, a bit more conscious of their online reputation, that’s not a bad thing by any means. It should also serve as another subtle reminder to Google users that they have Google profiles (which provide a landing page for those Google social products – Buzz and +1s).

Do you think the new Google Profiles design is an improvement? Share your thoughts.

“We think this new design helps highlight the information that’s most important to you, making it easier for people who visit your profile to get to know you,” says product manager Greg Marra. “As the new layout gradually rolls out, current users of Google Profiles will notice that their existing profile will automatically update to the new style.”

“Because Google Profiles are designed to be public pages on the web, used to help connect and find real people, we’ll be asking people to provide the name they are commonly referred to in the real world,” adds Marra.

An interesting side note to this story is that Rick Klau, who has been a product manager of Google Profiles for the past year, is now a product manager at YouTube. He says the most notable attributes of the new Profiles design from his point of view are:

- bigger profile pic – go update yours now! ”scrapbook” lets you pick 5 thumbnails to show on your About page (clicking through will open the pics in full-screen lightbox mode)

- overall update to the look & feel ”About” tab is the default tab (whether you use Buzz or not)

- Buzz users can choose to hide the tab (if, for instance, you don’t use it or just don’t want it shown)

- several fields have auto-complete (e.g., schools, employers)

- search visibility is controllable: you can choose to prevent your profile page from being indexed

Klau says once they got the Profile to code completion a few weeks ago, he moved over to YouTube. “I’m now a PM at YouTube, where I’m responsible for the homepage, YouTube’s social strategy and a variety of other related pieces,” he wrote on his blog. “Leaving the Profiles team was a very tough decision – I loved working with them and am eager to see the next set of things they launch.”

Klau’s knowledge of the Profiles and his new position could be a significant part of Google’s overall social strategy. YouTube is easily Google’s biggest social media asset. It’s even often referred to as the second largest search engine. YouTube (which started requiring Google accounts from users last year) integration will likely be a big part of that strategy, along with social search, which the company recently updated. I have to think Gmail, Reader, Blogger, and Docs (not to mention Google Apps) will also have significant roles.

Google has been hinting at a “social layer” that will be added across many of its products sometime soon. The Google profile will likely be the center of all of that (along with the Google account itself) – much like the Wall/newsfeed  for Facebook. It will be interesting to see how Google handles the promotion of it.

Google also recently rolled out a new top navigation bar across some of its properties, which is probably also related. This is just speculation, but the social layer is expected to surface (at least partially) in the form of a toolbar.

When someone asked Klau in the comments of a Google Buzz post if this is “THE big one or just part of the overall revamp of social across all of Google’s services”, Klau simply  responded, “Now that I’m at YouTube, one of my responsibilities is ensuring that we do the right thing w/regards to social features and the YouTube community.”

We’re still very interested to see how Google evolves in the realm of social media, while Facebook evolves in the realm of search.

Marra says that Google will continue to look for ways for businesses to use Google Profiles. So that in itself is something to keep an eye on. There’s a good chance Google is already a significant part of your business promotion and marketing strategies, so watch what Google does with the Profile (and Place Pages).

The new Profiles design is in the process of rolling out. If you’re not seeing it, you should soon. You can always go to profiles.google.com to view you profile.

Do you use Google Profiles? How do you use them? Tell us about it.

It is somewhat surprising that Google, being the search giant that it is, does not have a search feature here, where new users could look for other people they know. If you were looking at joining a new social network, you’d probably want to see if you have friends that are already using it. How much could this be impeding the growth of Google Buzz?

Granted, Facebook, the king of social networks doesn’t have a search feature, but look at Twitter’s home page. Search is very prominent. In fact, they made it this way in the era of everybody trying to figure out why they should be using Twitter. Google Buzz still has some convincing to do of its own.

Buzz has often been presented as a Gmail feature, but the profile is really the center of any user’s Buzz presence.

Even if a user does not wish to use Buzz, they may still find value in having a Google profile, given that they appear in search results.

Klau notes that if you use Chrome, you sill have a way to search through profiles, and if you visit your own or somebody else’s existing profile, you will find a search box at the bottom.

"Yes, adding a search box to the Profiles page is going to happen Real Soon Now," says Klau.

That will be one improvement. I’m thinking they should consider adding a Search Buzz field to individual profile pages as well – not to search for users, but to search for content. Remember how much more useful Twitter became with a search feature (granted, there is a Search Buzz button within Gmail)?

Yahoo has also made the profile photo easier to change. Simply mouse over the current photo and click the "change photo" link that shows up. The "find people" search bar has been redesigned as well. It’s in the "connections" module at the top right of the page.

The more noteworthy feature that Yahoo has added is a "My Updates" section, as you can see prominently in the above screenshot. You can add the sites you want to share updates from, much like FriendFeed. You can control who sees updates in the "manage my updates" link at the top of the section.

"If you’ve already closed the ‘Share Sharing Updates From Other Websites’ module, you can still add other websites by clicking "Share More’," the Yahoo Profiles Team points out.

It is interesting to see how Yahoo is evolving into a more social network-like entity. I would be surprised if Google Profiles didn’t eventually start including a similar feature to "my updates." Google has put a good deal more emphasis on the user profile this past year than it has before, but that is still a missing feature.

On Google, you can add any links to your social profiles you want, but it doesn’t let you import your updates right onto it. This would be a significant feature if they added it, especially considering Google profiles show up on the first page of results in name searches now.

Google recently launched the Data Liberation Front, a group dedicated to the data portability around Google Products. They set up a site that tells you how to import/export data for a number of products, and they say they are focusing on expanding such features for more products. Profiles are a product that makes too much sense to think that they wouldn’t do this eventually – especially now that Yahoo’s doing it.

Gmail

A while back when Gmail turned five years old, Google said that the coming five years would see more radical changes for Gmail than ever. Given the social nature of the web today, changes for the more social are the next logical step(s). Here are some rather social things (as I discussed here) that you can already do with Gmail.

    – send messages to friends

    – keep conversations with multiple friends together

    – embed videos/rich media in emails/chat messages

    – send messages to people beyond the Gmail wall

    – use search operators to bring up all photos /other media from any past messages

    – Account holders have profile pages with their picture

    – Creating a Google account essentially gives you an account to a much broader range of products in Google itself that allow for sharing things with friends (such as Docs, Reader, and Bookmarks)

Google Wave

Google Wave is a little confusing at first glance, but Jordan Golson at GigaOm sums it up well as a combination of email, instant messaging, and a real-time wiki. MarketingShift calls it the closest thing Google has to Facebook. Google calls it "a personal communication and collaboration tool" with the current incarnation being a "very early form."

This thing was made by the creators of Google Maps. It’s going to be interesting to see where it goes. It has received a lukewarm response thus far, but we’ll see what happens.

Google Friend Connect

Google Friend Conect is Google’s way of connecting users through other sites that aren’t owned by Google. It comes equipped with gadgets such as a Q&A gadget, and an event gadget that lets you coordinate events with friends, something you can do with Google Calendar also, by the way.

Web Elements – Conversation Element

Besides announcing Google Wave at the Google Developer Conference this Week, the company also announced Web Elements, which we discussed here. The Google Social Web Blog looks at one element in particular – the conversation element, which is powered by Google Friend Connect. It lets your visitors post comments restricted to just your site or participate in a global conversation based on topic of interest. That is interesting. Google explains:

A global conversation takes place on several web sites simultaneously and will have a "Global conversation" label underneath the title. When visitors post to a global conversation on a specific topic, such as mandolins (as shown in the image below), the post not only shows up on the site where they posted it, but it also on any site that chooses to embed a Conversation element on mandolins, now or in the future. So now your visitors can talk about mandolins with others interested in the same topic, no matter what site they’re on.

Google Reader

Google Reader, which of course allows users to subscribe to blogs and content sites by way or RSS feeds, has gotten a lot more social this year. They added a commenting feature, and a "friends and trends" feature.

More recently, they have pointed out the ability to create and share custom feed bundles with friends. This is an intersting way to share content.

YouTube

YouTube is often thought of as a video site, and it happens to also be the 2nd largest search engine. I think people often forget that it’s also a social network. Google continues to add social elements to this as well. For one, they’ve been testing realtime updates. They are also finally tying YouTube accounts to Google accounts. Makes sense doesn’t it?

Real Time Search

Google Co-founder Larry Page made it pretty clear that we’re going be seeing some more in the way of real-time search coming from Google. Well, that’s one of (not the only one, granted) the big appeals to Twitter. We don’t know what is going to come of this yet as far as Google’s concerned, but you can expect something.

Photo via Loic Le Meur

iGoogle and the Google Profile

I think these two elements are the real keys to integration of social activity through Google. If Google and users want to tie all of Google’s social elements together, I think it’s going to be through their iGoogle page and through their Google Profile. One appealing thing about both of these, is that neither one has to be limited to only Google’s social elements.

Google has a tremendous advantage with iGoogle, because it is designed to be the home page, and no doubt many people (myself included) use it as the home page in their browser (not just for Google).

Everytime I open a browser window, i start from my iGoogle page. And why not? It’s got access to my email, chat, Twitter, Facebook, task list, and everything else I want, all on a customizable basis thanks to Google’s directory of gadgets that can be added to preference – and that directory keeps growing. Most of Google’s products have gadgets. If you want to bring together your social Google experience to one home base, this is the most likely place that is going to happen.

Then of course, you have the Google Profile, the page that really ties your Google experience together from the backend. This is what you log in to every time you use a Google service, regardless of which you actually log in from (there may be exceptions). You can add any links to this page that you want (and I suspect that there will be a lot more customization options available in the future). Recently

Google made some big moves with the profile. For one, you can now create a vanity URL with it, based on your Google account name. Second, they started adding profiles right into regular Google searches for names. Considering that Google is the largest search engine in the world by a very large margin, that’s going to give those profiles some pretty significant exposure.

Advertising and Revenue Models

Revenue models and social networks don’t always go hand in hand. Some of course have yet to really even launch a viable one, but that has not been a problem for Google. Google has one of the best revenue models on the web (though there has certainly been a lot of talk that there is more to be done with YouTube), but Google has no problem with putting AdWords ads anywhere it feels like. Consider their foray into "interest-based" advertising, and you have to wonder if they’d ever consider displaying ads on iGoogle…or the profile. iGoogle being the starting point for the user (in many cases), and the profile being outsiders’ gateway to finding friends.

Conclusion

Basically, my point to all of this (and has been for some time) is that Google is building a social network right under us. Many Google users will find themselves social network users without even realizing it, and Google will have to be included in the conversation of top social networks. And Google is a beast to compete with, I’m sure others will tell you. Google has not had great success with every product  it launches, but if the company can find the right way to integrate everything, it’s going to be quite a force (or even more so than it already is).
 
What are your thought on Google as a social network? We would love to hear them.

"Should you get a verified name? Right now, it doesn’t influence whether your profile will rank better in profile results," says Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land. "But if you’re trying to convince people to trust that the page is really controlled by you, it probably makes sense."

Danny has a great article up looking at the ins and outs of Google Profiles, where he also discusses verification. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable however puts it into an easier step-by-step format:

1. You must go to Google’s Knol site and sign in.
2. Then go to your profile settings.
3.  Click on the "Name Verification" tab
4.  Then choose to verify by phone or via credit card

So basically, you’re not getting verified without giving up a little personal info, which should be a hot topic among those people who frequently criticize Google on privacy. Still, they’ve got to make sure it’s really you one way or another don’t they? And it’s not like you have to get verified.

I have not done this, and my profile is the only one showing up in a search for my name at this point, so I’m not too worried about it. That may change in the future, but for now, I’m good.

You can still verify other email addresses with your Google account right from your profile (no going to Knol or anything). When you go to edit your profile, you’ll see a link for "verify an email address" in the middle of the page under the "Verified Domains" heading. However, if you have an email address that is associated with a different Google account, you will be unable to verify it.

Would you be willing to give Google your phone number or credit card information to get your profile verified? Tell us why or why not.

How important do you think it is to get your profile verified? Share your thoughts with WPN readers.

It’s a smart move because it opens the door to other Google services that YouTube users may not have otherwise been privy to or taken the time to acknowledge. Things like iGoogle, Google Reader and Google Docs for example.

Really, the move could provide a tremendous boost to Google’s social media efforts, which it has seemingly been taking much more seriously lately. As I’ve discussed before (though I cited Gmail as the central point), Google itself has kind of been a social network for years, and many just haven’t realized it.

Now in recent weeks, they have put much more emphasis on the Google Profile, which is now showing up in search results, and offers the option of vanity URLs for easier visibility. YouTube has long been a huge social network (not to mention the 2nd largest search engine). Why not incorporate that more into the rest of Google? It’s arguably the company’s biggest and most well-branded social media entity.

Users can still sign up for YouTube with any email address, and they’ll still pick a unique username. "So why are we doing this?" asks James Philips of the YouTube Team. "We feel that by jointly connecting accounts, you can take greater advantage of our services both on YouTube and on Google, especially as we start to roll out new features in the future that will be powered by Google technology."

Those who already have a YouTube account but no Google account will still be able to enjoy YouTube just the same, but Philips says they will be rolling out features that will require a Google account in the future. Such features are not elaborated on, but I am very eager to see what these will be.

I would not be surprised to see a prominent YouTube link start showing up on Google alongside things like web, images, maps, news, and Gmail. There is already one for video that goes to Google video of course, but I have often pondered why YouTube would not be featured here. It’s obviously the more popular video engine.

To get them, users can follow these steps: 

- Confirm the information on the card

- Fill in their shipping and email information (this info is only used for confirming and sending cards)

- Cards should be delivered within 10 to 12 business days.

The offering comes in partnership with iPrint.com. iPrint is a personal online printing service that lets you customize printing materials and have them delivered to your doorstep.

The business cards probably aren’t the greatest thing for branding (except for Google of course), but it is actually to promote yourself as an individual if you are utilizing your profile to its potential.

The profile allows you to put any personal links up that you wish, so if you want to let people know how to find you anywhere online (such as on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Your Site, etc.) it can be quite useful for that.

They are free anyway, so it’s not like you’ll be wasting your money on this batch. The offer is apparently only available in the continental United States.