After the revamp of Orkut, Google has turned its attention to its centralised Profiles feature. Google Profiles was launched in 2007 and allows Gmail users to establish their own public online profile with pictures and information about them. Don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of them as most people haven’t. It wasn’t before April 2009 that users found these profiles of some use other than being an appendix of their Google Accounts — Google Profiles started showing up as search results. Soon the term, “Google me” became a reality. Google Profiles was also an important entity of Social Search which Google announced in October 2009. Recently, after Social Search got upgraded, the prominence of Profiles increased, yet there was something missing — Google Profiles looked hideous.
That is now the past. Google has announced that they are giving “Google Profiles a new look and feel, making it even easier for you to control and enrich your public profile.” I just had a feeling of deja vu. The Orkut Team also wrote in a blogpost announcing the new changes, “We’ve worked on some simple changes to Orkut’s look and feel.” So, the social web teams of Google are all out to revamp their products’ “look and feel.”
Is it just me or do these changes make the Google products more Facebookish? The changes incorporated brings your profile picture to the top left corner with the basic information about you just below it. A set of photos from your Picasa profile inhabits the top of the page, much like the tagged images that show up on the top of a user’s new Facebook profile. Also, like your Facebook Info page, the rest of the profile depicts detailed info about your occupation, employment, education and locations. Visit profiles.google.com to try out the new profile design.
Google is also planning on launching similar interface for businesses. The blogpost reads, “While profiles work well for individuals, we’ll continue to work on new ways for businesses to engage with their customers, so stay tuned for updates.” Okay, so Google is also looking at the prospect of bringing something in lines of Facebook Pages?
But, the fact that Google is making its profiles like Facebook is not major news. Most social networks are doing that, as users spend most time on Facebook and are comfortable using that design. The major news of out this announcement is Google +1, Google’s ultimate attempt social networking, is rearing to come soon. Google has recently launched a new toolbar which looks a lot like the toolbar spotted in the leaked images of Google +1.
Google +1, on its own, would be an answer to Facebook’s dominance. It is expected to have large scale video conferencing within Loops. Loops are expected to be the groups which a user is a part of in Google +1. Skype and others have made video conferencing a day to day affair but Google +1 is expected to take this to a whole new level by allowing dozens of users to join the conference. Although these are just speculations, the fact that Google is upgrading the “look and feel” of its social products makes me feel that something is coming
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