Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Eric Schmidt describes Google+ as an "identity service"

plus.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 87 posts

Re: Eric Schmidt describes Google+ as an "identity service"

#71

Post by sixtofour »

baddox wrote: post #49
maeon3 wrote: post #26

I prefer anonymity. Google knows too much about me already, I'd prefer they stop trying to make every fact about me known by the servers that serve me pages. I don't want every link on the internet an opportunity for the authorities to stop that click event.

I don't understand how anonymity would work with a social network.

I have a lot of people in my G+ circles. I've never met 99% of them before G+. As far as I'm concerned John Smith is as anonymous to me as Sp00n B4nder, neither one has any context for me except what I read from them.

And yet, I interact "socially" with them just fine, and I think of them as John Smith and Sp00n B4nder. It causes me zero problems.

Names in this context are just labels, and I don't care what the labels say, I just care what they point to.

Re: Eric Schmidt describes Google+ as an "identity service"

#72

Post by A-K »

dirtyaura wrote: post #51
halo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fundamentally, Facebook is an identity directory. The ability to easily transfer real world identities and relationships into the digital world is the big problem Facebook solves. It's one of those fundamental problems left unresolved by Internet protocols, similar to Google being able to solve search because the web has no implementation built in by design. Facebook's communication features, the 'social networking',…

> Fundamentally, Facebook is an identity directory. ... > Facebook's communication features, the 'social networking', in itself isn't anything special. Throw away your cynical world view for a second and just go to your Facebook feed and see how people are interacting there, having fun, supporting each other, spreading a little bit of love in form of "likes" (even if it's a bit silly) and come back and say it ain't a…

I would say Google Hangouts emulates chatting in a bar more than any Facebook feature does. Facebook, for me at least, has become the service that I use as a messaging tool, a constantly-updated "social newspaper", and an online rolodex.

Re: Eric Schmidt describes Google+ as an "identity service"

#73

Post by abraham »

sixtofour wrote: post #67

"He replied by saying that G+ was build primarily as an identity service" Which is becoming more and more obvious. However, it was sold to its users as a social networking service.

If you read the announcement identity is very important in every aspect that was announced: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-pr...

Re: Eric Schmidt describes Google+ as an "identity service"

#74

Post by ifben »

Eric Schmidt says weird things (see http://dthin.gs/niXnvA). Here's what stood out to me in this talk (paraphrasing): "People don't have to use it if they don't want to."

You know you have a suspect product when that's the best defense you have for it. He wants people to use G+ yet he says that they don't have to. Saying stuff like that doesn't make current users comfortable or new users giddy to try it out.

Re: Eric Schmidt describes Google+ as an "identity service"

#75

Post by salemh »

jonursenbach wrote: post #58
icandoitbetter wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College students signed up, found nothing of interest and didn't bother to visit again. I'm fairly certain that G+ has failed, but I can't say I didn't expect it: Circles, its main selling point, is a gimmick that no normal user would bother to use after day 1, the UI is rather unexciting, etc. As far as I'm concerned, there's really no incentive to switch from Facebook for most people.

College students signed up, found nothing of interest and didn't bother to visit again. Citation needed.

https://plus.google.com/115360979797396777969/posts/EZ3XZR73...

Not directly a citation, it is very hard to dig for a "bounce" rate or usage statistics of Google with the deluge of the real-name debate in content searching.

Well, found a bit more: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2098915/Google-Usage-Tr...

Conflicting reports: http://gigaom.com/2011/08/19/inactive-accounts-google-plus-i...

Re: Eric Schmidt describes Google+ as an "identity service"

#76

Post by kirillzubovsky »

ifben wrote: post #74

Eric Schmidt says weird things (see http://dthin.gs/niXnvA ). Here's what stood out to me in this talk (paraphrasing): "People don't have to use it if they don't want to." You know you have a suspect product when that's the best defense you have for it. He wants people to use G+ yet he says that they don't have to. Saying stuff like that doesn't make current users comfortable or new users giddy to try it out.

This resonated with me too. "No one is forcing you to use it," - precisely, and therefore no one does! Just because there are a ton of nerds using the service right now, doesn't mean it's useful. My mom, who took a few years to get comfortable with email, she sure is not using it, but guess what, she's got Facebook! Google is disappointing :(

Re: Eric Schmidt describes Google+ as an "identity service"

#77

Post by protomyth »

frossie wrote: post #17
ltamake wrote: post #3

Losing hope in G+ very fast. They're going to make the same mistakes that are killing Facebook. I'm also concerned about them selling data from G+, since Schmidt describes it as an identity service. It's a very evil concept.

It's also quite duplicitous. It was represented as a social networking service, not as an identity service. Moreover people assumed (yeah, I know) that since privacy control was Facebook's Achilles' heel, that Google would do better than that, and they seemed to be going one step forward with the Circles thing. Ever since then, it has been two steps back. It's easy to say "Hey, if you want to be pseudonymous go elsew…

I get the feeling that any attempt to do a better job in this regard will really have to base its income on something other than advertising. The temptation is way to great and the rules that allow great targeting are not alternate name friendly.

Re: Eric Schmidt describes Google+ as an "identity service"

#78

Post by protomyth »

baddox wrote: post #49
maeon3 wrote: post #26

I prefer anonymity. Google knows too much about me already, I'd prefer they stop trying to make every fact about me known by the servers that serve me pages. I don't want every link on the internet an opportunity for the authorities to stop that click event.

I don't understand how anonymity would work with a social network.

As mentioned in jwz's post http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Papers makes a very interesting reference. You could kick around a very interesting model based on the method of publication. On the other hand, most people here really don't know who each other are except via the words written under a username.

Re: Eric Schmidt describes Google+ as an "identity service"

#79

Post by puredemo »

cageface wrote: post #57
ltamake wrote: post #3

Losing hope in G+ very fast. They're going to make the same mistakes that are killing Facebook. I'm also concerned about them selling data from G+, since Schmidt describes it as an identity service. It's a very evil concept.

Google's shenanigans around G+ were the final straw for me. I'd been growing increasingly uneasy about the amount of personal information I'd placed in the hands one of company. As it became clearer that G+ was an attempt to harvest still more monetizable information I decided to bow out. I've now unplugged myself entirely from all Google services and I don't intend to ever again rely so heavily on any one company.

What do you use for email? I can't think of a strong alternative to gmail.

Re: Eric Schmidt describes Google+ as an "identity service"

#80

Post by cageface »

puredemo wrote: post #79
cageface wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's shenanigans around G+ were the final straw for me. I'd been growing increasingly uneasy about the amount of personal information I'd placed in the hands one of company. As it became clearer that G+ was an attempt to harvest still more monetizable information I decided to bow out. I've now unplugged myself entirely from all Google services and I don't intend to ever again rely so heavily on any one company.

What do you use for email? I can't think of a strong alternative to gmail.

Right now I'm using fastmail.fm and Mail.app. There are some features I miss from gmail but it's good enough and I can use my own TLD more easily.
Post reply on HN