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.
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. 6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the shared topic feed comprises a plurality of different posts, and further comprising: providing, in the topic feed, a user input mechanism by which the user can comment on the plurality of posts in the shared topic feed, and wherein receiving an indication that the user has interacted with the portion of received text comprises receiving an indication that the user has commented on one of the posts, such that, the portion of text comprises text in the post on which the user commented.