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Among a handful of patents transferred last December 31 from IBM's portfolio to that of Google, as first discovered by Bill Slawski of SEO By the Sea, is a system for processing text compiled by users of social networks, and ascertaining their common interests. We've already seen the rise of tools such as Radian6 for ascertaining social net users' individual interests; this new technology, which received a U.S. patent only one year ago, would judge what concepts they share with one another.

The goal of this technology, as IBM originally stated, is to literally to filter out irrelevant links to articles that may not pertain to users' search intentions. What we don't know yet is whether Google intends to use this technology, or simply keep others from using it first.

Waiting for a Google Plus invite? Google is rolling out the service in waves and you can expect it to become a ubiquitous social option in the coming months. We have been playing with the service since getting invites yesterday and there are a lot of things to like about Google's new social initiative.

Unlike Google's last big invite-only rollout of a social initiative - Google Wave - users will not be confounded on just what the heck you are supposed to do with the service when signing up for the first time. From Friendster, Friendfeed, MySpace and Facebook, users are familiar with how a social platform is theoretically supposed to look. At its core level, Plus is not that much different. Yet, there is so much more. How do you get started with Google Plus? Let's break down the nuts and bolts.

Social networks seemed poised to take over the Web. This year, Facebook reached 800 million users. LinkedIn went public in a blockbuster stock offering. Twitter produced a billion tweets per week. And Google launched its own social network, Google+, attracting 25 million users in one month.

Amid the continued growth of these social networks, there has been much excitement about how the rest of the Web would soon be infused with all things "social": social search, social commerce, social deals and more. And yet the effort to socialize the rest of the Web has so far failed to live up to its promise. Why?

Facebook seems to be testing a new feature that could give it more granular data of people's profiles and strengthen bonds within its social graph. Facebook has started showing users a "needs review" notification for information that others add in your profile. For instance, say you want to add a colleague from a past or current job, the person gets a notification that says that there is information that you need to review.

In terms of employment, this brings Facebook much closer to LinkedIn's style of strengthening connections along its social graph. LinkedIn makes it very clear that you must have a connection with the other person and the connection must be approved by both people before the link is completed. In this way, Facebook can make stronger ties in the vast web of its social graph.

Grindr, the popular gay hookup mobile app, has launched a new version of its location-based people-finding service. Called Blendr, the app is aimed at a general audience, but the core idea remains the same: help users find other users based on shared interests and physical proximity, as close as one block away.

Unlike Sonar or Foursquare, where you have to go outside the app to Twitter to talk to people or leave time-delayed comments on check-ins, Blendr keeps your interaction with nearby people in the same app.

In an attempt to make its Graph API more accessible Facebook today launched a new service called the Graph API Explorer. The Explorer helps you sign-up for an access token, experiment with Graph API commands and see the results and explore the results to help understand what the different responses mean.

Congratulations to the Google Plus team for shipping a superb beta under conditions which could be considered equal parts turmoil and FUD. I absolutely love it. If it had 750 million users on it right now it would be a superior experience to Facebook.

For starters, it looks more cohesive. This isn't surprising because it is a blank slate product that did not have to deal with the technical debt Facebook has accumulated since 2004. Beyond the interface however, Google Plus will be more engaging emotionally for people because it allows them to be more authentic with one another.

Why? Because Google Plus establishes intuitive clarity for my social graph.

Waiting for a Google Plus invite? Google is rolling out the service in waves and you can expect it to become a ubiquitous social option in the coming months. We have been playing with the service since getting invites yesterday and there are a lot of things to like about Google's new social initiative.

Unlike Google's last big invite-only rollout of a social initiative - Google Wave - users will not be confounded on just what the heck you are supposed to with the service when signing up for the first time. From Friendster, Friendfeed, MySpace and Facebook, users are familiar with how a social platform is theoretically supposed to look. At its core level, Plus is not that much different. Yet, there is so much more. How do you get started with Google Plus? Let's break down the nuts and bolts.

LinkedIn showed off a new addition to its Lab site today called the LinkedIn Connection Timeline. It's a very fun way to remember people you used to work with throughout the years - and see where they are now. Built internally by LinkedIn's Gordon Koo, the visualization does a good job illustrating the tip of the iceberg of what structured, social data can provide when accessed programmatically.

And it's fun. It brings to mind the app Memolane and makes me wish someone would build something like this for Twitter or Facebook. Take the list of people I'm connected to there and show me when on a timeline I connected with the ones I have interacted with the most. Play me a song that my Last.fm profile says I used to listen to a lot, don't listen to anymore and that has a high-emotion rhythm to it and you've got a mashup that could bring lots of people near tears. (You just know that Facebook will offer something like this someday.) Always more emotionally reserved, LinkedIn at least offers a fun retrospective of past co-workers.

If you are looking to bring some sense to your social networking life, take a closer look at the free tool from Nimble.com. (We last spoke to Nimble's CEO Jon Ferrara here.)

Nimble imports your contacts from Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook and brings them together in new and interesting ways. Once you activate your account, you grant the service access by providing your user name and passwords to your social networks. It takes a few minutes to do the imports and Nimble will send you an email when everything is finished.