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Using Google without a Google+ profile

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Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#211

Post by silverbax88 »

colinbartlett wrote: post #133
silverbax88 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish they would just get it right, and let me create different accounts for the apps I want to use. I just want a YouTube account. No Gmail. No G+. No tying my adwords account to anything else unless I request it. This is extremely simple, and Google has made this horribly invasive and it's flat out broken at this point.

But we all know why they forced the unification of these accounts. So they can correlate our activity across services to "better serve us". (Read: serve us ads.)

Even if that is the goal (which is likely), it does not explain the need to force me to create accounts for applications I don't want, like Gmail. That's like going to a car dealership, buying a sedan and the dealership forces you to take five crates of crab apples with you at gunpoint.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#212

Post by jfoster »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #39
mkozlows wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook has, and has long had, a real name policy. If you want a reason why Facebook succeeded and G+ didn't, you'll need something that's actually different between them.

What you post on Facebook, however, is not visible to the public unless you explicitly make it so. There's a world of difference between what John Smith writes on his Facebook wall and is visible to only people whom John Smith has explicitly deemed to be friends of John Smith, vs. a public Youtube comment that was once authored by user LordofPants, but thanks to G+ real name policy is now known to the public world as…

"a public Youtube comment that was once authored by user LordofPants, but thanks to G+ real name policy is now known to the public world as John Smith"

Are you saying the real-name policy was retroactive? I wasn't aware of that. If that was the case, wow.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#213

Post by arihant »

greggman wrote: post #102
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I think the sticking point on most of it was the Real Name policy. Had they stopped the delusion from the outset that they could be a Facebook competitor and simply made Google+ a correlating landing page for your online persona, rather than your real identity, I think it would have worked. I wouldn't necessarily mind everyone knowing that AdmiralAsshat likes Black Sabbath music videos on Youtube, hangs out…

You might be right but Facebook succeeded dispite the exact same real name policy. It's hard to look at Facebook's success with that policy and then claim it was obvious google would fail with it. The better question is why did Facebook get away with it?

Because Facebook had it from the beginning. Nobody wants to put their real legal name on their YouTube comments they've made in last 8-10 years.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#214

Post by NamTaf »

sirmarksalot wrote: post #181
azernik wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Facebook and YouTube comments support threaded replies, but people tend not to use them. Either just a UI issue (the reply button is not highlighted) or a deeper structural issue (people know that top-level comments won't be reordered, so they think the conversation will still be readable) or a prestige issue (both YouTube and Facebook collapse all replies to top-level comments by default, making it MUCH less li…

Threaded replies are a somewhat recent addition in both cases. In the case of Facebook, it's only been available for a couple months, and with YouTube, maybe a year or two. People are probably just used to the old way.

FB's threaded replies also only go 1 deep.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#215

Post by CamperBob2 »

blakeyrat wrote: post #145
darklajid wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure. Admitted, I'm not a fan of Google and maybe a bit grumpy, but I read this blog entry as "Now everyone will need a G+ account, but it won't have a public profile". That said, the distinction between Google account G+ Account Google Profile is lost on me, I'm genuinely confused about the past and present state of these things. It feels like "G+ Accounts" are supposed to be the new "Google Accounts"? Like…

You aren't the only one. I have two Gmail addresses, and two YouTube channels. As far as I can tell, I have FIVE Google+ accounts (there may be more!): 1. Nickname email for friends 2. Real name email for family/jobs 3. A SECOND nickname account that somehow got created when I logged into YouTube one time 4. A SECOND real name account that somehow got created when I logged into YouTube some other time 5. The YouTube…

The thing Google really fails to understand is the cognitive burden imposed by all of their byzantine rules. I didn't mind creating multiple accounts for YouTube versus G+ and the like, the same way I have one account name for HN and another on Fark.

If I'm forced to create a single account, now I have to take the time to understand how it works and what it exposes to the world. I have better things to do than to try to keep up with Google's business model du jour and anticipate the many ways they might alter the deal in the future to my disadvantage. It's so much simpler for me to do the worst thing for Google that they can possibly imagine, which is to ignore their offerings altogether.

I think that's how they ended up with a ghost town full of millions of unused Google+ accounts.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#216

Post by dredmorbius »

NamTaf wrote: post #214
sirmarksalot wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Threaded replies are a somewhat recent addition in both cases. In the case of Facebook, it's only been available for a couple months, and with YouTube, maybe a year or two. People are probably just used to the old way.

FB's threaded replies also only go 1 deep.

As do YouTube's IIRC. See Jeff Atwood of StackExchange on his thoughts re: threading.

My thought is that HTML needs a comments primitive with date, author, subject, and references, with the resulting view (threaded, flat, collapsed, etc.) a client detail.

Or, you know, Usenet, tin.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#217

Post by javajosh »

mahouse wrote: post #209
rudolf0 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "before" you mean 2008, then yes, arguably. Starting around 2009 I've started using various browser extensions to hide the comments, and I've never been happier.

I don't understand. Can't you just... not read them?

That kind of software is easier to install, but less consistent.

Re: Using Google without a Google+ profile

#219

Post by dredmorbius »

LLWM wrote: post #91
hyperpallium wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did they need real names anyway? If they build a profile based on your browsing and social graph to show you ads, what does it matter who you actually are, so long as you have those interests? Like a node in a graph being distinguished only by the arcs connecting it.

One factor was an attempt to counter the GIFT ( http://www.penny-arcade.com/S=0/comic/2004/03/19 ) by preventing anonymity.

Among the more notable admissions that that didn't quite work as expected came from Yonatan Zunger, G+'s chief architect.

https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/WegYVNkZQqq

A few days ago, +David Brin shared a post about GamerGate, in which he opined that this is a problem which would be solved by greater transparency: "It is only anonymity that lets bastards like this operate," he says, "Accountability is the light that sears most kinds of badguys, whether they operate in criminality or in high places."

I disagree with his analysis, and this disagreement is rooted in part in my experience of information-revelation policies on social networks. (e.g., name requirements) While there was an expectation that people would behave better when their activity was tied to their own identity, as that identity is presumably a highly valuable and non-renewable resource to them, the evidence weighed against it: people seem quite willing to be jerks under their own identities....

In practice, the forced revelation of information makes individual privilege and power more important. When everyone has to play with their cards on the table, so to speak, then people who feel like they can be themselves without consequence do so freely -- these generally being people with support groups of like-minded people, and who are neither economically nor physically vulnerable. People who are more vulnerable to consequences use concealment as a method of protection: it makes it possible to speak freely about controversial subjects, or even about any subjects, without fear of harassment.

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