Google Profiles Gets Vanity URLs

Ever since it was released, the problem Google was faced with in its attempt to become a social entity was that it did not have any cohesive place that would unify everything at the same location. All its services have more or less social elements (think of YouTube, Picasa or Google Maps), but Google as a whole does not have a single area for everything to be easily searched and viewed. However, few of you know that there actually is such a place called Google Profiles, but it hasn't been very popular because it is not particularly useful and it's quite hard to search. Now the company has decided to make things easier in terms of finding it.

According to the blog Digital Inspiration, the service in discussion got a new option that allows users to use so-called 'vanity URLs' for any profile. The consequence is that instead of having your profile located on a page like this http://www.google.com/profiles/110883325073 or some other meaningless expression, you can get something like http://www.google.com/profiles/YOURFAVORITENAME. Also, it should be mentioned that for those of you who already have a Gmail or a Picasa account, Google Profiles will generate a new URL containing the corresponding username. If this is not the case, feel free to choose any name or nickname, provided it is still available on the network.

A very important aspect of this vanity addition is that it will make all profiles easier to use for file sharing, but it will also help them appear more frequently in related Google Searches – and an improved search experience is surely an aspect quite important to Google. Since November 2008, members have had the possibility to use the search functionality for Google Profiles, and yet very few people actually use it. Some time after this, Google brought several improvements to the area, such as the chance to include picture feeds or insert thumbnails. However, these actions did not make too much of a difference when it came to Google Profiles popularity.

But time has come for Google to finally make these profiles a thing of the present and create an area where users can easily find social data about a certain member. And this does not apply to Google services only, since Flickr images can be added to enhance any profile page. Through these measures, it seems that Google intends to build actual social network profiles, without creating any new network to sustain it. After all, Google and all its auxiliary services do form quite a large social network altogether.

So all that is left now is for everyone to choose their nickname and create the 'vanity URL' that best represents them on the web.