1. A computer-implemented method of identifying user interests, using a computer processor, comprising: receiving text from a shared topic feed distributed to the computer processor, the shared topic feed comprising at least one search query entered by a user in a public stream and a link associated with the search query, and wherein the shared topic feed further includes search results returned for the query submitted by the user along with a link corresponding to each of the search results; receiving an indication that the user has interacted with a portion of the received text, including receiving an indication that the user has submitted the query entered by the user for execution by a search engine; receiving marked text marked with an explicit interest indication that the user is interested in a subject matter or a person identified in the marked text; identifying content words in the portion of the received text; removing the marked text from the content words; performing a statistical analysis on the content words, with the marked text removed, to identify the user interests, wherein the user interests include a topic of interest that includes at least one of a subject matter of interest and a person of interest; identifying the user interests based on the explicit interest indication and the statistical analysis; and displaying an indication to the user indicative of the identified user interests.