Word of mouth is no longer limited to giving your friend a short review of a movie over coffee. Today, we are constantly plugged in and share many of our thoughts online. We are tweeting, blogging, sharing, liking, and posting about everything that interests us.

In 2009, to better utilize the high traffic of opinions on social media, Google launched a social search function that pulls mentions of your search query from social networks in realtime. Social Search provided a more diverse snapshot of your query, yesterday Google launched their next step in social recommendations to their search engine: the +1 Button.

In less than a week, Carlsberg will be asking the residents of Sweden to ‘unbottle’ themselves in a series of challenges driven through the iPhone and Android. The campaign tackles the notion that Sweden is a reserved nation — a notion which the brewing company hopes to dispel by creating a fun, word-of-mouth effort that will have people taking part in 500 cheeky offline exploits such as “skip down the street” or “pretend to be a tour guide on the bus”. Participants are required to submit photo and video content to prove when they have completed a challenge, and this user-generated content will be pulled into a campaign-specific website which will both curate and share each participant’s stories.

To serve as incentive in this campaign, participants stand a chance to win a trip to Hong Kong (along with other items such as iPads).

Earlier this year, we explored various group messaging tools that were launched and promoted at SXSW (see here for a refresher).

GroupMe is one such mobile-based tool that allows users to establish unique conference calling numbers through text message. Its new GroupMe Featured Groups offering now enables brands to join in the group messaging platform, as well. According to Mashable, the Featured tab will now let brands and organizations such as MTV, Bon Jovi and the Coachella Music Festival send messages, receive questions and post incentive-based deals and promotions.

Following this week’s trend of real-time tools that perpetuate serendipitous and unexpected encounters, Agora is a new app that allows Foursquare users to utilize their check-ins to identify nearby individuals with similar interests. Launched out of New York at Foursquare’s recent Hackathon, Agora currently has 1,500 users.

According to an article on PSFK today, the app assesses the user’s previous check-ins and the open Twitter API to make educated assumptions on what sort of likes and interests they may have. It then turns to the user’s Twitter account to provide a compatibility score and set up introductions — which means that potential matches do not have to be using Agora to receive introductions.

Color is a new mobile-based photo and video app that has launched out of the United States. Available through both Android and iOS, it is a content-sharing tool that relies not on fans or followers — but purely on geography. The user’s photos, videos and conversations appear in a stream alongside posts from other users who are nearby. Similar to The Situationist app, Color creates the opportunity for serendipitous and unexpected encounters in real time.

This tool will be especially valuable at live events or at large gatherings, as it will enable both users and voyeurs to stitch together an authentic view of the bigger picture — told through the lens of more than one person.