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Google.. what are you doing?

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Google’s Bradley Horowitz recently announced that Google+ will be accepting Nicknames and Pseudonyms. Considering other changes, is Google+ drowning?

People from day one have been asking for anonymity on Google+ and now Google has a few ways to hide your real name from the world. At least that is how it seems. With the announcement a couple of friends tried setting up nicknames. And while they could add them into their profile, they couldn’t change the name that people saw. Hopefully that portion just hasn’t rolled out yet.

The Pseudonym Policy on the other hand will require some verification. The methods could be rather arbitrary as they say the will require either real world or online verification of some sort. The arbitrary nature of the verification process is where I see problems coming in. The other question is what should be a nickname and what a Pseudonym?

Finally, Google is forcing people to sign up for Google+ when they get any of Google’s services. While we all know that this is a sure fire way to artificially increase the numbers for Google+, there is another problem with this. The naming policy, unless you get an approved pseudonym, requires real information such as your full name. This limits the usefulness of Gmail as an anonymous e-mail account. Not only that, but it could drive people to picking up Yahoo or Hotmail accounts again. Forcing people to sign up for a service they don’t want and will not use is a bad business decision on any company’s part. It really makes you wonder if Google+ is drowning in its own hype.

Right now I am taking a wait and see approach. I have a Google+ account already, and I do have a Google+ page set up for SiliconShecky, which eventually I will find a tool that will post my articles to Google+ like I post to twitter automatically. Also check out this article from Ars Technica for more information.

What good is social media when your friends leave it?

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Google Plus, the honeymoon is over. Is social Media any good when you have no one to talk to?

So there we go. Google is really bringing the hammer down on people who use Pseudonyms. Not only for Plus, but also for Buzz, and other Googley apps. What good is it though? People get pissed and leave those services. That means less ad money for Google. It gives people a bad taste in their mouth, so they stop purchasing things that Google supports. It can be a nightmare, especially in this day and age of Twitter and Facebook also.

A friend of mine who just left google plus wrote the following as their last post:

Dear +Bradley Horowitz

I really thought you guys had figured it out, but its pretty clear from the Google Name Policy that Google has once again failed at recognizing the basic tenant of social networking, namely that relationships made and maintained online are just as real as those made in real life if not more so because of the greater pool of finding like minded individuals. Clearly those at the top have never been part of a forum community, an MMO, or been to a spontaneous community event whether it be out in the desert at Burning Man, inside the track at the Indy 500, or just waiting in a line for a concert. Those who have understand that a chosen name is just as real as one printed, stamped and filed by someone’s parents.

Everyone else has already mentioned the safety and legal concerns of denying the protection of a pseudonym to a wide array of people who would be in significant danger should they use their legal names on a public, datamining, service, so I won’t belabor the point.

For Google, I only ask you to watch the numbers as people begin to walk away and try to understand the significance of having a network where no one is, because none of their friends can participate safely.

For everyone else, please repost on your own accounts, you can give me a mention, if you like, but don’t just share it, you never know when I won’t be considered ‘real’ enough for Google.

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They are right. We are living in a world where people are becoming known more for their pseudonyms than their real names. A world where privacy means something.
Google overall has been deviating and basically given up on not being Evil. Android was originally marketed as open source, but now is only semi-open. Chrome browser is out there, but more heavily controlled now. Web apps, have become more and more secretive.
Page and Brin are what they are. Paranoid, secretive, wanting in the end to do good, but now are doing more bad than good. 2 brilliant minds who really don’t understand the real world, nor care about our concerns. Just like their mentor, and now enemy, Steve Jobs, they want to force things down our throats. the want to get all the information they can from everyone, and use that information to force us to the cloud for everything. They shouldn’t have to force us. they should do what they started doing, which was give us the tools we need to make the leap, and open them up so we have reason to. Maybe, someday they will get back to their original vision. I don’t count on it though.
Meanwhile, Google Plus is becoming a ghost town for me. A good number of my friends left due to the naming policy. Even people like Will Wheaton and Felica Day don’t seem to be posting as much. I’ll stick around there until they kick me out for using a nick name most people know me by. It really is a shame, because without the name policy, Google Plus could have laid the smack down on Facebook. People liked the setup, the circles, the security on it. Its too bad that Google doesn’t listen to us about names.

 

Google+ A First Look

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Social Networking is a big thing in the world right now. Can Google+ be the next big thing? Here are my first impressions of it.

Google+, the new attempt by Google to go up against Facebook. I was able to get in it last night, and immediately started poking around, seeing what was what, and how things worked on a basic level.

Basic is the best way to describe the look of Google+. so basic and spartan, which is nice in some respects, but maddening in others. It is easy to see your stream, your circles, etc, in fact the basic layout of where things are located is very similar to Facebook. The learning curve on what is what, is not too bad, although a few hours in I was still trying to find some settings.

The biggest issue I ran into with the main stream page, was the stream itself. It seemed like there were posts put in random order. It made things rather confusing, and I have yet to find a setting to force it to be in an actual timeline that makes sense. This is something I feel needs to be addressed, and pretty quickly, as Facebook’s news feed is well beyond Google’s stream in look, feel and custom-ability.

After looking and tearing my hair out with the stream, I went  into Circles and started setting things up. Circles, to me, is the nicest feature. I proceeded to set up a few special circles for myself and started adding people I knew into different circles. Being able to segregate people into different areas so they only can see what I want them to, allowing for certain things to get out, while other things don’t, is a great idea, and well done by Google.

Posting to one’s stream, you get some nice options, including sending the post to people you know who are not in Google+ yet which would work as an invite to them. Other options such as which circles, or even down to individual people are allowed to see the post, gives a granularity of privacy that Facebook does not have, nor cares about.

Sparks is probably the second most interesting aspect of Google+. The idea of getting what amounts to a RSS feeds based on a keyword for an interest, is amazing. Again, you can get real specific with you information and search. this is definitely right up Google’s main alley, with its search engine.

Some areas where I find it to really feel beta, or need to be improved, besides the stream order, include the Settings. It is not as easy to find some of them, especially the privacy settings, as I would like. Its definitely no more difficult than on Facebook, but I think Google can do better. Also, there is no event calendar system for setting up events. Considering that could be integrated with Google Calendar, I am surprised that they didn’t do that out of the box.

Google did give a tab on Your profile page to keep up with Buzz to some extent, but I haven’t played with it enough to really see how well Buzz got brought into Plus.

Keeping in mind that this is still beta software, and there are bugs, slowness issues, and other things that can and will change or be adjusted, what they do have right now is a good start. Its a solid base upon which to build on. the question really is, will Google advance with this or will it drop the ball like it has in the past.