Google+

[Tychomonger]

There is this new Google project called Google+ which has been described as "like facebook, plus it's not facebook!" I'm somewhat interested in it. As far as I know, Google has a pretty good track record for not abusing the massive amounts of personal information it already has in its possession, so I would like to give it a try.

Does anyone have an invite they could pass along to me?

[draque]

I really like the idea of this, but they'll have to push it really hard. Facebook's usefulness doesn't come from its features or its games for me (both of which are pretty meh as far as I'm concerned). Its usefulness comes from the fact that everyone uses it. You don't ask someone "Do you have a facebook account?" at parties. You ask "Hey, let me friend you!" It's assumed that you mean facebook, it's assumed that they have an account, and it's assumed that they'll understand what you mean without actually saying "facebook." I would love there to be an alternative to FB, which I think is the freaking devil, but I don't know if I buy whether Google can topple them.

[mwchase]

Thing about accounts is... let me see how many people I know have a gmail account.

There's me, Coda, Elde, three members of my immediate family, and... 27 out of wow that's a big number. Stupid point, going and undermining itself. But my point was supposed to be, once Google+ gets going, they'll open it up to everyone with a Google account. So, everyone on GMail, everyone with a blogger account, everyone who regularly uses even one of Google's services that require an account will automatically have a Google+ account when it gets opened to the public.

I'm fairly certain that most of the people at UMass will be on it. There was a push to use Google Apps for stuff like email, that actually failed because the current default setup is so bad that everyone already set up their account to forward to GMail anyway.

[Idiot Glee]

I have three G-mail accounts... And everyone else I know has at least one.

It's like having a yahoo account 10 years ago, back when I had at least as many.*

*I compartmentalize.

[Wizard CaT]

Fuck you and fuck social networking. I hate it so much.

That being said Google has never done a successful attempt at social networking sites. In fact "Buzz" gave them a giant back lash.

Idiot, can't you use your main Google account to create "other" gmail addresses? I thought my friend once told me she did something like that.

[arex]

I now have a Google+ account, but I'm honestly at a loss as to what to do with it. The foolishness of Fecebook has me a bit leery of just clicking on shit.


Hnngh.

[Wic]

All I see is another social networking site for me to sign up anonymously and fill it up with pictures of my unmentionables.

[Tychomonger]

I got a google+ account, and I like it!

[Plasman]

I have a Gmail account, but I also have a Facebook account which I hardly ever use (apart from occasionally logging in and setting my status to "Yep, still alive"), so... yeah.

[mwchase]

So, anyone have any thoughts on the whole "Nym Wars" thing that was bubbling around a few weeks back? I'm not directly affected, but I know some of us are, or could be. (Although actually, I should be affected. They disallow names in multiple languages, and my given name is Spanish-derived (which is non-obvious), while my surname is French by way of England. And my middle name is German.)

Now that I think about it, (WISDOM PENALTY) I wonder how the policy they have in place affects, um, many of the people on this forum, who have had to legally change their name. I haven't been paying too close attention, so I don't know if they brought their stated policy and appeals process in line with each other ("Use the name that your friends know you by. In the event that we're not sure your friends know you by that name, please produce government documentation."), but having a setup that stupid would not, in a perfect world, be sustainable.

[Idiot Glee]

Isn't a cheap easy solution just to use a realistic-ish name that noone would guess was fake or say... combination of your real name and some ancestors?

They're banning people with names that are obviously fake.

Anyway, I'm not a proponent of forced real names. That's just recipe for disaster long term (nobody wants to have to cultivate a profile like a politician, even politicians hate it), some of us behave ourselves pseudonymously.

[Coda]

Oddly I've gotten away with being "Coda Highland".

Then again I barely touch G+.

[draque]

Honestly, I think that more activity and interaction would work in your favor. The more connected you are and the more you're interacting in a significant way (which is to say, friending in a pattern that matches those you've friended, rather than simply friending all connections that you're able to see publicly, etc), the less likely you are to be a bot or spammer.