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

[the_future_modernes]

Thanks for reposting! Google continues to scare the hell out me and I am seriously planning to leave.

[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.

[ajnabieh]

This is really starting to worry me, since the central place I keep one of my online identities (one radically unconnected from my meatspace IDs) is on gmail. (Well, actually, it's mainly an LJ/DW identity, but it all started with my gmail account, and that's what links it all together.) At some point, are they going to tell me that I can't use Pseudy McPseud's email account any more, because I don't have a birth certificate saying Pseudy McPseud? Or say I can only keep the account if I announce publicly that P McP is Real Name, and link those accounts together?

*taps fingers nervously*

[lexicalcrow]

Yeah, I think it's time I backed up everything onto non-Google places, just so I have somewhere to bolt to if I feel the need to get rid of Google. :/ I don't use much bar email and calendar (and lurk on G+), but still.

Google, I like you, generally, but you're beginning to scare me now.