Found on that other bastion of privacy .

• “Google+ and The Trouble With Tribbles”
  

  The trouble with social is that it is social – with all the norms, behaviors and expectations that come with that. You cannot re-engineer that overnight (Facebook is being far more successful in doing so using far more insidious means). Facebook also has a policy of Real Names, but it realizes that to make the social work you have to cater to the psychology of the users. So there are no identity verification processes, no automatic suspension of accounts and schemes that entice us to provide real data instead of telling us to do so. The fidelity of the data is proven by it’s socially verified reputation, not because there is a policy document that can be pointed to (at the end of the day, a much more robust and legitimate mechanism).

• “For Ceorl Onlyone, thanks…”
  

  “As I’ve said previously, I left Facebook and Google+ because I could see the direction and I discerned the narrowing that indicates both subtle and direct attacks upon choice and privacy. I left because my presence was a reason for my family, friends, and peers to remain.

• “The Social Graph is Neither.”
  There’s no clear pull quote, but boy is this a great de-construction of the phrase (and product name) “the social graph”. Read it carefully, and you’ll never hear those words the same way.

• In a number of places, including “Take back the comments: stop online harassment” and comment on “Why it Matters: Google+ and Diversity, part 2,” Kathy Sierra says:
  

  Keep the pseudonyms and lose the assholes.

Previously: “Google+ Failed Because of Real Names” and “Yes, Google+ Is a Failure“

Some folks might advise me to stop digging a hole, put down the shovel and walk away. But
I’m going to pick up that shovel, and try to convince you that I’m not exaggerating. Google+ may not be a New Coke level failure, it may be a successful failure, but it’s a failure nonetheless.

The goal of Google+ is to dominate the social network space, replacing Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and building a moat around Google’s core business of advertising. That moat ought to consist of Google having more information about you than the CIA does (ok, that’s hyperbole. The CIA can’t store that much info). The moat ought to be that Google can show your wallet-name ads that tug at your wallet-strings.

Do you really think that Google wanted to enter this market to play second-fiddle to Facebook? Do you think that Google is happy that Facebook is going to pop out in the biggest IPO in history real soon now, giving them a massive war chest?

I think that the answer is fairly obviously a no. Now, you could argue that Google+ is en route to topple Facebook. That Google will take three tries to get it right or something, like they did with Search and Mail and Maps. (Oh, wait, they didn’t take three tries on any of those.)

What’s more, I don’t think that no was pre-ordained because of Facebook’s massive user-base. People were willing to show up at Google+ and explore. And that exploration rapidly foundered on the nymwars.

I think the system could and should have done better, if Google wasn’t so hell-bent on controlling what name people could display for themselves.

(If I knew how to work Adam’s twitter integration thingy, you’d have been spared this)

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There’s a lot that Google gets right in Google+, most notably the idea of circles. Circles could be a great way for Google to mirror how people interact, and let them present different things to different sets of people, under their control. It’s a simple, understandable metaphor.

But Google hasn’t derailed Facebook, because Google shot themselves in the foot at launch. That’s why TechCrunch has articles like “Raise Your Hand If You’re Still Using Google+.” Let’s be clear, this was an own-goal, and it was avoidable. I know of at least two Googlers who left because they felt Google wasn’t living up to its own values in the internal debate. Google has put their desire to have a real-name driven internet ahead of their user’s desires. Maybe a free name change would make that ok? But it’s not ok, and name changes won’t make it ok.

Within days of Google+ being launched, the positive press was being driven out by stories about the “Nymwars.” A lot of it revolved around Google having claims that your displayed name could be what people called you, but as Skud clearly documented, that was a bizarre and bureaucratic lie. But documenting up your “government name” isn’t enough, as people like 3ric have documented. (It’s pronounced “Three-Rick,” and that’s how I’ve always known him.)

As bad as it is to tell people what they can write on the “Hello, My Name is” badges, it’s worse to be inconsistent and upsetting around something as personal as a name, or to tell someone that a Capulet they’ll no longer be. The very worst part is that Google managed to do it at the wrong time.

What Google did by focusing attention on “real names” when they did was to take attention from the really cool aspects of Google+, and draw it to an emotionally laden set of battles that they can’t win. They managed to calm the waters a bit by declaring that they’d “support” other names, leading to this awesome bit of politically-incorrect-calling-bullshit: “EFF declares premature victory in Nymwars.”

Another way to see this is Google knowingly burned an awful lot of goodwill with one of their key communities, techies. The way that they did it hampered Google+ during its launch, preventing it from getting the momentum it probably deserved.

They did all that in order to get one unique name for everyone. Oops, wait, there’s lots of people named Mike Jones. They did it to get name that links to “the real world you.” They wanted to get a commercial advantage for Google, at the expense of people’s ability to choose how they present themselves.

It hasn’t worked out, and yesterday, Google announced the next set of changes. (EFF has some comments in “Google+ and Pseudonyms: A Step in the Right Direction, Not the End of the Road.”)

Most interesting to me, Yonatan Zunger, Chief Architect of Google+ says:

We thought this was going to be a huge deal: that people would behave very differently when they were and weren’t going by their real names. After watching the system for a while, we realized that this was not, in fact, the case. (And in particular, bastards are still bastards under their own names.) We’re focusing right now on identifying bad behaviors themselves, rather than on using names as a proxy for behavior.

That’s gotta hurt.

The key takeaway: Google spent a huge amount of goodwill on an attractive, but untested idea, which Yonatan summarizes as “Bastards won’t be bastards under their real name.” (As an aside, there’s a lean startup lesson there, but Google has yet to pivot.) You shouldn’t make the same mistake.

Names are personal. They shouldn’t be subject to policies for vague, untested reasons. They shouldn’t be subject to policies at all unless your idea is even better than Google can do. Don’t make your new thing fail by sacrificing it on the altar of real names.

Some follow-on posts: “Yes, Google+ Is a Failure” and “More on Real Name Policies.”

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Next time, look to Gourmet Depot and see if they have replacement parts.

It was easy to find their recommendation for our specific coffee machine, the recommended pot fits great, and was cheap.

Check out Gourmet Depot next time you’re in this bind.

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