Cullmann Design Blog

Online identity management is hard even for people who are adept at managing their own SEO/SEM footprint. The ability for the public, friends, colleagues or potential employers to find you (“findability” to reuse the O’Reilly definition) is a mix of art, science and alchemy. Controlling what those searching for you find is the trick.

Google’s newest service, Google Profiles, gives you another way to manage your online presence. Acting as an “official” identity page, Google Profiles is part fill-in-the-blank SEO tool, part social media landing page and part self-promotional web center. Without linking out to any additional services, you can add your bio, a picture and a link to any URL. Results may vary, but if you don’t have much in the way of a web footprint, your Google Profile should be a high-result in a search for your name. For those John Smith’s in the world, I think the task may be more difficult. If you have included a photo, that too will come up in the Google search results page.

In addition to the basic bio, you can add a photo feed from your flickr account, a seemingly infinite list of URLs to sites that house your content, map information, some information about you as well as your contact information. The contact information is governed by a control interface that allows you to choose who can see your information. You can use a “group” architecture, or if you are a Google user, you may use your chat list or e-mail list from gmail or Google Calendar. For those outside of the Google Network, you can turn the contact content on or off based on your preference.

If you already have a network of sites or an online presence, Google Profiles, is an ideal place to put all of your contact information as a spring-board for those who might be looking for you. With geographic information, flickr and room for an many URLs as you care to enter, it puts your empire of content in one place. This is not a replacement for any service or a way to fall flat on your search-engine optimization efforts, but rather another branch out onto the web.

As part of the launch campaign, iPrint has been offering free business-cards with the Google logo and your profile URL printed.

LINKS:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/search-for-me-on-google.html
http://www.google.com/profiles/cullmann

Touch is the new click: with the growing number of devices using touch as the primary input method, the common vocabulary for designing user interface is changing. Punchcut has produced a very elegant video for user interface considerations when designing for a touch-screen device. The video is excellently produced andPunchcut’s summary is right on point.

Punchcut Perspective: Considerations for Designing Touch UI from Punchcut on Vimeo.