This is really interesting. Google Labs is experimenting with allowing users to incorporate their various social network profiles with their Google accounts. What this’ll do is provide a section in your search results that pulls content from your “social circle” that’s related to your search query. These results can come in the form of blog posts, tweets, pictures, and more. And it doesn’t just pull from your direct circle of friends but your extended networks as well — very cool. Check out the video above for a brief overview or see Google’s post here.

If this interests you, check out my friends over at Pinyadda. They’re are a bit ahead of the curve by building a social platform that collects news and various articles based on the sites and topics interest you the most; sort of like if Twitter or Facebook took on RSS.

Looks like the people over at the CNN’s Web Design teams have been busy. I think I need a bit of time to digest and get used to the new design before I can say if it’s a real improvement, but first impressions are also important:

• a bit jarring visually compared to the previous design/template — felt very RED and a bit heavier.
• I kinda wish they could have taken the new design across the entire site (minor criticism)
• looks like there’s more emphasis on media visuals. Video especially feels like it has more prominence.
• homepage gets a little bare below the fold.
• news pulse feature is great. It’s basically CNN’s flavor of Digg, but with ‘popularity'(???) driving the rankings.
• better integration of social features. comments are nice (why no facebook connect?), more prominent linking to facebook, twitter, & others, nicer iReport, and again NewsPulse is great.

Overall, I think CNN.com has a cool new design. CNN is setting the bar in the online space for news and media companies by proving their users with a very clean, slick look and feel, adding lots of great new features, and emphasizing their strengths in multimedia and social media. Sure there’s the whole issue of creating more serious revenue from these ‘sites’, but I think CNN’s strategy is to simply grow an audience first by concentrating on user experience… and the money will eventually follow (right, facebook?).

Just installed a WordPress plugin called Lifestream. After some headaches around upgrading to PHP5.0 and tweaking some CSS, I was finally able to get it running properly. Lifestream publishes all the activity from my social web “life”. So it’s basically a dumb facebook feed that is just part facebook activity… you’ll also see music I listen to on Pandora, apps I’ve rated on the iTunes App Store, new blog posts, stuff I Digg, my tweets, etc.

Check out my lifestream here.

It’s not a problem perhaps yet, but I definitely see an approaching issue where companies will have trouble managing their social brand/identity. And now that social media — in all its forms — is no longer the future wave of the internet but now kinda is the internet, companies are doing more and more to create solid strategies and navigate the space effectively. Simply having a website and facebook page soon won’t cut it. Some companies just dabble with the stuff. Others already have dedicated resources, budgets, and strategies around managing their social responsibilities.

Here are some stats:

• Over 80% of companies are using at least LinkedIn and nearly 65% of marketers are using social networks and sites such as Facebook and MySpace in managing campaigns.
• Personalities and brands like Ashton Kutcher, CNN , and JetBlue have 3.7M, 2.8M, and 1.3M twitter followers respectively. Really Ashton?

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