If the headline "Decide what the world sees when it searches for you." means that when someone search a name+surname profiles.google.com will always be top I see this as quite powerful!
That has be Google's social trump card. If they ever pull the trigger on that, that is a real Facebook competitor (Actually, seems more like LinkedIn competitor now that I think about it). I always like the rumored branding of Google Me for this reason.
Of course, they are getting some heat for the OneBox stuff they do, so there is some danger there.
Only if you want everyone Googling your profile straight up. In an era when people worry about colleagues, employers and stalkers discovering their public profiles and photos too easily, I'm not sure if this will be useful for everyone rather than self-promoters, SEOers, etc.
I think your mention of LinkedIn is closer to the mark.
