Kate Size | Thursday 24th October 2013
Forget Google Places, the new thing is Google faces.
Yes, your face could appear in advertising through Google.
How does this happen?
Well
it is largely connected to Google’s +1 function, which currently allows
Google Plus account holders to “like” a place, restaurant or product/
service. Similar to Pinterest, the information is stored in a central
location and you can gain access at a later date to everything you’ve
+1’d.
Google calls it, Shared Endorsements.
A master plan has
been devised to intertwine this information with advertising. For
example, if you have +1’d Nordburger (awesome new burger restaurant at
Norwood) and left a kind comment about their staff, you may see your
face and review appear under an ad for Nordburger. Spooky!
Where can your mug shot or comment end up?
Hot
on the tail or recent changes to Facebook’s privacy setting (refer last
weeks blog) Let’s remember that Google is connected to several other
Google offspring’s such as your Gmail messages, Google + photos, You
Tube videos and Google + contacts list. Google justifies the decision;
“We
want to give you- and your friends and connections – the most useful
information. Recommendations from people you know can really help”
It
does beg the question, is this really helpful? To your average
consumer, maybe not, however, as a business, you may consider the
following;
Google ads reach around 1 billion users worldwide. This
new advertising angle using a persons face and review is credible (Even
if the end user doesn’t know that person). As we can all appreciate,
people are likely to “listen” to others who they can identify with.
Just another way Google chips away at personalising their product to the benefit of advertisers and ultimately businesses.
What if you don’t want to be the next poster boy or girl?
The
good news is that you do have some control over your face popping up in
front of millions of users. The way to control who sees what you’ve +
1’d or reviewed is in your “Shared Endorsement” setting.
If you
don’t want Google to utilise your information you will need to click the
Google+ tab on the left sidebar to bring up the options. From here,
select settings then ‘Off’, for shared endorsements.
Mark November 11 2013 in your diaries.