Google is starting to roll out centralized profiles, which will contain basic information which you will be able to share across all of its various applications.

Up until now, you could create different and disparate profiles on a number of Google owned Internet apps, including Blogger, and Orkut. But each one had to be created separately, and could contain entirely different information on each.

With the new and oh so cleverly titled Google Profiles, you can spend a little time creating one universal profile which can contain as much or as little information about yourself as you like, and then share it amongst most of the applications and services now residing under the Google umbrella.

Google themselves explain it as such:

“A Google Profile is simply how you represent yourself on Google products — it lets you tell others a bit more about who you are and what you’re all about. You control what goes into your Google Profile, sharing as much (or as little) as you’d like.”

The new system is already available in Google Maps, Google Reader, and Shared Stuff, and are expected to be added to the other applications soon.

All the profiles are public, although you can decide how much basic information you wish to divulge to anyone and everyone, keeping, for instance, your real name private, and just using a nickname.

This is just another step towards Google becoming even more of a dominant force on the Internet, than it already is.

We’ve already seen the company try to enforce their own authority on blogs and bloggers not willing to play by the rules, by lowering their PageRank. We also know they are trying to break in to the social networking market with the OpenSocial initiative.

And just a few days ago, we learnt of the efforts to try and knock out the need for Wikipedia, with Google’s own ‘Knol’, or ‘Googlepedia’, as it is already being labelled.

The might of Google is an unstoppable force, and you’re either with them or you’re not… I’ll be off to write my profile now then, before they realise I’m rallying against the machine.

Related:

Entry was posted on Sunday, December 16th, 2007 at 6:50 pm under Google, Internet.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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