An easy to understand video, demonstrating and describing Google’s Privacy Principles. Shows what type of data they might collect, how they’d use it, and how you can lock down the privacy of that data.

Cartoon action with voice over best describes this video. Younger audience members will be able to understand this as well.

Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.

Google has finally ‘officially’ begun indexing Twitter. It’s about time.

As an avid Twitter user for years now, I’m glad to see this happen. Many things are now being shared only on Twitter. It’s a high speed, low bandwidth window on your world and the worlds of your neighbors. Everyday I see links and information shared on Twitter that will never make it to a blog or otherwise indexed page.

There is always a downside.  Now more than ever what you say anywhere will be attached to you. Thought you were lost in the crowd on Twitter? No more.  Google and other search engines will soon be making available that crude tweet you sent about your barber, ex, or that sleezy politician.

The upside? Those obscure links to your blog will now be counted. You’ll know be able to find tidbits about your favorite town or restaurant as well.  And for those addicted to p0rn, yes, it’ll get even easier.

Will this indexing ultimately change your life? Not likely. Just be aware that your stalker’s job just got easier.

@tojosan

Welcome to the series Sunday Social Networking Tips. The plan is to bring in folks to share their best ideas about social networking. The next person to write up a tip could be you!

Today’s tip is just focused on Twitter.

Tip:

Eliminate the spammers, MLM, and get rich/followers/beauty quicker crowd

Most of you know I’m a big fan of using a Twitter client. All of the clients out now support some form of searching. A few of them also include the ability to filter a given column or set of Twitter messages.

I’ve been using these filters and searches to find specific tweets within those posted by my friends messages, a way to find just the posts on origami for example. But what I hadn’t thought of doing is using search to stop following folks.

Kevin Cottrell, @kevincottrell, shared a primo idea during our Bring a Tweep to Lunch outing the other day. He suggested adding a filter of negative words. The search would be on things such as p0rn, MLM, and so on.

You ask why right? The idea is that those are folks he’s not interested in really following. It gives a quick way to just click and unfollow. Immediately the amount of those tweets will drop.

For me that would make a significant dent. I don’t autofollow folks, but I do follow back a fair amount of decent prospects. There is always some that slip through that really send the most annoying tweets.

Why does it matter? It matters because it floods the stream and crowds out the messages I’d prefer to see.

So the tip is try negative word filters against the tweets you follow and see what you find to screen out.

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Mashable has long gathered Easter Eggs. This time they’ve pulled up some fun ones from the new WolframAlpha search (research) engine.

But Stephen Wolfram and his team didn’t stop there, and they certainly didn’t lack a sense of humor when they built their Mathematica-based engine. Slowly but surely, people have been finding some interesting quirks within Wolfram Alpha, triggered by specific questions or events. These interesting easter eggs will make you smile or raise an eyebrow in bewilderment.

Two of my favorite finds in the list I’m resharing here. I take no credit for these finds.

Go read the whole post and get a laugh or share your WolframAlpha Easter Eggs.

 Welcome to a new series on Social Networking Tips. The plan is to bring in folks to share their best ideas about social networking. The next person to write up a tip could be you!

Tip:

Search.

Last week hdbbstephen shared another great way to connect with folks on your social networks, search.

I like to create do searches for topics that I am interested in on Twitter, to see what people are saying. Then I go look at their Tweets and reply when I have something to add to the conversation. I have found some cool folks this way, and been invited to write guest posts, etc.

What a great method to not only learn what’s being said about your favorite topics but who’s saying it.  The problem is that most folks have never thought to use search.

Let’s see a about one of your choices.  How about searching Twitter.

Twitter can be searched best by using search.twitter.com.

It’s that simple really.  The search will bring up tweets from most recent back. Searching here is forgiving of periods and the like, and does better with words that aren’t imbedded. However it does find links with the supplied search text.  Where I’ve had the most success is finding locals in the St. Louis area.  It’s also been useful to find folks interested in my favorite shows and such.

Google doesn’t slack either for searching on social networks, all tweets are indexed.  However there are other ways to find great discussions and people on Twitter.

Layered on top of Twitter search is one of my favorite tools, Tweetstats.com. Tweetstats Trend page is a winning way to find out what’s hot and from there who’s talking about it. Want to find out who the biggest talkers are on Twitter, then try twitter_stats. It shows the folks with the most replies.

Back to the basics there though.  So you’ve searched, and @sallywhoseit is talking about jumbotron physics, your favorite topic. Now what?  Do you just jump in and say something about the topic? Do you introduce yourself first? Do you tweet about them and hope for the best?

My recommendation is that you take two minutes and do a few things first.  One, check their Twitter profile out.  See if they are perhaps a Jumbotron Physics professor, student, or just like to ride jumbotrons.  This will go a long way to steering future conversation.  Second, check out their recent tweets. Was this a one of joke comment? Do they talk about this often?

A great way to check their history is to go back to Twitter search and add that person’s ID to the search. Bang. You’ll know if they are an expert, wanna-be, fan, or just making a joke.

From there it’s just a matter of making the proper introduction.  Jump in and chat.

Notice I didn’t say follow them, stalk them, or find their email and drop them a note. Just chat. And go away if they get creeped out.

This week, take a few minutes to search for some new contacts by searching Twitter for your favorite topics.  Come back and share or write your own blog post. Either way, please do leave a comment and let me know how it goes, or drop me a line on Twitter/@tojosan.

Twitter / todd – Twitter Name Search

Ev brought us a Twitter Christmas present, Twitter Name Search. It’s really that simple, and can be found from the Find People link at the top of the Twitter web page.

It shows you the results as in the picture below:

The result list is sorted from most to least followers. Each entry provides the basic profile information, including number of followers, and time of last update. A Follow button is provided next to each entry.

As you can see above, a search on Todd, my first name, returned my profile.

Nifty bonus: phonetic search

Notice I typed in dethrow for a search. This is an unusual last name as you might guess. I was surprised to see that it recommended tetherow, a phonetically similar name. Interestingly, there is a Tetherow.

I can see this will be immediately useful for finding long lost friends, and folks you’ve only been introduced to but didn’t get their Twitter ID.

Good job Twitter team. Merry Christmas.