Does Google give value to unlinked mentions too?

The reason why I am asking this is because I am subscribed on Google Alerts for one of our websites. And I get notifications on it even when it is just a mention of our website on another website.

Ideally it should give some value behind the scenes because it's not possible every time to get a linkback but a mention on a big website is important too!

Does anybody have any experience with it?

I think mentions are important with google but im not sure how much they impact rankings. It certainly can't harm them so any mention is a bonus to me.

Anybody else has an experience with them? Was just thinking if anything wicked can be worked out based on those!

I doubt they do much for you.