Sharing or Caring: Google In Search of a Social Market -Chicago Online Media

Google has announced that starting November 11, Google+ users can have their profile faces,names, and comments appear in reviews and advertisements. This new social feature is a way forusers to share their thoughts and recommendations with other connections. As this becomes moreimplemented, and people's profiles gradually appear in the ads we see through our searches, Googlemay be working towards a new social market.

Yelp is a website dedicated to user reviews and ratings, while Facebook has its own tools formarketing through the Like function. While this new Shared Endorsement feature is optional, andthe user has control over what can be shared in public, people who use this feature may besubconsciously advertising themselves. By disliking designer socks and praising lounge bar sushiitems, users can let other people know what they approve or disapprove of. And by reading theopinions of people on certain products or services, we can form a general opinion about thesepeople. This phenomenon is common on the Internet, but it may have different consequences if ourpicture, profile, and other personal information are attached with our opinions.

The new Shared Endorsement function is not only using people as a mechanism for advertising, butit serves to highlight one of the less obvious functions of social media outlets: to "market" ourselvesin a certain image. The more someone is liked on the Internet, the more successful the marketingtactics have proven to be.

An article on Vanity Fair talks about school girls who use dating apps such as Tinder to hook up withother guys and possibly find love. Nowadays, Sharing altered images of oneself and accumulatingapproval on an internet dating outlet are ways some people are trying to make connections. Whatthey are also doing is marketing their image. There has been a clear shift in how people spend theirtime on the Internet, and some of the interviewed girls admit that social media is destroying theirlives. However, without social media, they believe they would have no lives; marketing themselveshas become an indispensable part of making relationships with others.

The power of customer endorsements on the internet can also make users feel unsatisfied or out ofthe loop, if some users know that their friends have the luxury to refer a special deal on anextravagant cruise to the Bahamas, and they don't. Shared Endorsements can reveal far more thanintended, aside from the profiles that are attached with the endorsements. The things that peoplereview become a reflection of things that they did or normally do. Then, the endorsements can signalpeople what they should do. If not, they should review their lives, because they may be missing outin many things social life has to offer.