Prompted by a note placed on Facebook by Roger Moffat earlier today, I read an article on the Time website entitled, “Why Google Wants You to Google Yourself.”
What it comes down to is that Google started a new website this week (which will most likely be in beta forever) that allows anyone 
to post their own profile – posting what they want other folks to see, not just what might happen to be out there on the web. Now you can tell your friends to just Google your name – and click on the one with your picture beside it! I created my profile about 8 hours ago, and it already comes up when I do a Google search on my name (Leland Meitzler) – although it is in 11th place, at the bottom of the first page, with a picture that I replaced hours ago.
The new Google Profile website allows anyone to quickly create a personal information page that includes their name, picture, location of every place they ever lived, occupation, places worked, schools attended, and room for pretty extensive personal information.
The page fills in and looks similar to Facebook, with some important differences. For one thing, much more space is allowed for the personal bio. The education, and work fields are more free-form, allowing more detail. However, at this point Google Profile doesn’t seem to be trying to compete directly with the Social Networking sites, like Facebook and MySpace, but is building a site that works well in conjunction with them.
When filling in the data, I was encouraged to link to my websites, as well as any social networking and/or photo service sites. So I linked to my photo albums on Facebook, my photos at Picasa, the Family Roots Publishing website, the Christmas Tour website and this blog. There is space at the top of my Google Profile page for more pictures from online albums (like Picasa), from which I’ll add pictures later (I have very few pictures at Picasa at the moment – only one album taken at an airshow in 2006). I also added a link to my Genealogical Speakers Guild page.
The site also includes a Google map called My Places which marks the cities where you have lived. It lists your interests (In my case being Genealogy, Social Networking, and Gardening). It also goes on to list two things that seem kinda’ corny, but goes to show that someone at Google has a sense of humor. The user is asked to state something they can’t find on Google. I answered, “The fountain of youth.” Even cornier is that you’re asked to list your “superpower.” For that one I just said “Collecting Dead Relatives.”
All in all, I think this is a pretty neat little website – which will get very big very fast. I’ve listed my profile in a number of places online (LinkedIn, Genealogical Speakers Guild, Facebook, Classmates, and others), and my Google profile will undoubtedly be the most seen, and clicked on.
After reading your Google profile, I bet we sort of crossed paths many years ago. I purchased at least a dozen reels of census microfilm from AGLL and rented many more.