G+/Google information everyone should know

[merhawk]

Andy Carvin of NPR spoke with Google Chairman Eric Schmidt for a few minutes. Per the conversation, Schmidt acknowledges/states that "G+ was build primarily as an identity service, so fundamentally, it depends on people using their real names if they're going to build future products that leverage that information."

Identity Service != Social Network, Eric Schmidt. And you're billing G+ as a social network. Just sayin'.

Todd Vierling looked into the Profile Real Name issues. He discovered that these issues are about more than just G+. It looks like the endgame will end up involving most, if not all, of Google Products.

[reposted from my journal]

Comments

[brewsternorth]

You are, apparently, not alone. Someone's drawn up a linkspam of other available services (amusingly, Dreamwidth rates a mention) that do some of the same things various Google products do without being Google.

Me, I'm wondering if Hushmail is worth the annual fee. It might just be... I'd keep my gmail, but the idea of a not-Gmail that I have a little more fine-tune control over is appealing.

[merhawk]

I always suggest paid email. If you pay, you're the customer instead of the product. I've never used Hushmail. I've used Sonic for years. You don't need to use them as an ISP or be in any specific geographic area. You pay approximately $20/month for up to 5 email boxes. They have awesome spam filtering, and excellent customer service.

[the_future_modernes]

Unfortunately I can't afford that at all. So withdrawing from google is the best I can do at the moment.

[syntheid]

I use Hushmail as a separate account for sensitive data like bank/credit card statements, etc. I actually used a free account for a long while before upgrading so I could use IMAP access, as the web interface is useable, but not great. Though they do have an option to forward a stub email to let you know you have new mail, so that at least allowed me to notice if I had mail and check it. I'm not sure it's particularly more flexible, though-- at least, I find it more rigid and difficult to deal with compared to gmail, actually, if you're using the web interface.

(Personally, I'm playing around with Fastmail, which may be a decent switch from gmail for all my regular mail for me-- seems a bit more flexible in terms of filtering and search with Sieve, while offering additional services like file hosting. And it's pretty cheap, as well, which is nice.)