
Eric Schmidt describes Google+ as an "identity service" - jdp23
https://plus.google.com/117378076401635777570/posts/2y7vqXBtLny
======
ltamake
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.

~~~
frossie
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 elsewhere". I have no
desire to be pseudonymous, but I certainly want to socialise with people who
are. I can't be the only one.

HN good news: the field is still wide open for someone who wants to do it
right.

~~~
halo
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', in itself isn't
anything special.

From that perspective, Google+ becomes much clearer. Google are attempting to
use Facebook's poor social networking features to elbow in on their identity
directory.

~~~
dirtyaura
> 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 anything special and it's just a
solution to an identity directory problem. It's much more.

Facebook is the closest thing to a chat at a bar with your friends that
internet has to offer. Certainly, there are better bars already out there, but
FB is a bar that your friends are willing to come to. It's still early days of
internet and our virtual existence, so FB ain't that colourful and deep as an
evening at a local pub can be, but painting it just as a identity directory is
a fundamental misunderstanding of social internet.

~~~
enqk
IRC feels much closer to a bar, if you want to use this metaphor. A bar does
not record people's discussion and keep it forever for all to see..

~~~
dirtyaura
Maybe, but most of my physical-life friends friends won't come to IRC. As I
said, there might be better bars, but FB is a good enough to socialize with
people you want to see. And IRC can be downright nasty for uninitiated, it's
like this awesome watering hole on outskirts of the town that reveals it's
beauty only after repeated use.

------
fragsworth
I'm kind of disappointed in their handling of it. I personally would like
Google+ to succeed and at first glance it seems the real-name policy is not
good for publicity, and subsequently not good for Google+'s growth.

The majority of people will use their real names anyway so I can't imagine why
forcing it on everyone would help much of anything.

Can someone help me understand their rationale?

~~~
Alex3917
"Can someone help me understand their rationale?"

Google is ultimately trying to turn the web into their own app store so that
anyone who wants to create, view, monetize, or share content has to do it
using their proprietary services.

~~~
Pewpewarrows
Do you honestly believe that?

~~~
Alex3917
Yes of course. Google sees themselves as being in the utility business, like
the digital equivalent of an electric or water company. The whole company is
basically a series of strategically placed loosely connected platforms that
work in the background like infrastructure. Right now the Internet is still
very young so they are essentially just building their moyo[1], expect the
pieces to become more closely interconnected over the next ten years.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moyo_(Go)#Moyo+.28.E6.A8.A1.E6....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moyo_\(Go\)#Moyo+.28.E6.A8.A1.E6.A7.98.3F.29)

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mcantelon
This doesn't wash. Google Profiles seemed to me to be an "identity service".
This seems more likely an identity characteristics service for data mining
info about people.

~~~
duh_org
Google Profiles _is_ the "identity service" that has tendrils into more than
just G+ (and the banstick was swinging long before G+ hit the public). Schmidt
just didn't generalize his comments enough to point out that subtle but
critical difference.

But I did:
[https://plus.google.com/103653740605668919281/posts/iHugVQvM...](https://plus.google.com/103653740605668919281/posts/iHugVQvMGig)

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easyfrag
If so, it is an identity service run by an advertising company.

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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.

~~~
kirillzubovsky
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 :(

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dotcoma
Bullshit. It's an ad-targeting service.

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daedalus_j
As far as I can see Google hasn't gone out of it's way to make + a compelling
end-all identity integration platform that combines all of my other Google
services, (I'm looking at you Reader. Where's my "share with circle" button,
hmm?) so I'm not sure where they get this idea that it's going to be one for
the web at large is coming from.

I think the phrase "they're going to build future products that leverage that
information" gives away exactly who these future products are going to be
designed and built for. They very carefully did not say "that are going to
allow you to leverage this information."

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jamesbritt
Out of curiosity, how did the duplicate URL detector not catch that this was
submitted four hours earlier?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2931770>

~~~
tokenadult
The two URLs were not identical, as the earlier submitted had additional
characters at the end (which appear to be a no-op in this case).

~~~
jamesbritt
Yeah, I saw that, but thought that fragment IDs were ignore.

Oh well.

------
sixtofour
"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.

~~~
abraham
If you read the announcement identity is very important in every aspect that
was announced: [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-
pr...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-project-real-
life.html)

~~~
sixtofour
OK, but most people are never going to see that. I didn't.

Most people are going to wonder what google plus is, and end up here, where
Google is actively telling potential users a particular story:

[https://plus.google.com/up/start/?continue=https://plus.goog...](https://plus.google.com/up/start/?continue=https://plus.google.com/&type=st&gpcaz=4807fced)

Nowhere in there does it say it's an identity service. The closest it comes is
to talk about putting different people in different circles.

Nowhere does it say that services that worked perfectly well for you are at
risk if you run afoul of the name issue.

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rokhayakebe
Context, please. I know it was an Q&A, hence there may not be a relation
between what he said before and after answering this question. However the
internet is very quick at taking one statement and turning it into something
else.

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njharman
Our right to anonymity trumps google's (or atone else's) right to "down vote"
the "evil".

What's described is the archetype slippery slope. What's evil shifts and grows
ever larger.

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HankMcCoy
It's a fair point, nobody has to use it, that's true. But what I don't like is
that there are exceptions like for "Madonna" and maybe others as well.

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gallerytungsten
In other words, it's about making money by selling your data profile, and if
you're not willing to help Google make money, they don't want you using their
service. Pretty much the same outlook as Facebook, with minor variations in
rhetoric.

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Astrohacker
I'll handle my own identity, thanks.

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badclient
Once again I repeat: Google+ is _dead_.

It's over.

~~~
RexRollman
I wish I could agree with you but for so many people this isn't an issue. It
will probably do fine regardless of how us geeks feel about it.

~~~
dasil003
Are non-geeks on G+ now?

~~~
icandoitbetter
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.

~~~
jonursenbach

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

Citation needed.

~~~
salemh
[https://plus.google.com/115360979797396777969/posts/EZ3XZR73...](https://plus.google.com/115360979797396777969/posts/EZ3XZR73J4K)

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...](http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2098915/Google-Usage-
Traffic-Slows-as-Buzz-Dies-Down)

Conflicting reports: [http://gigaom.com/2011/08/19/inactive-accounts-google-
plus-i...](http://gigaom.com/2011/08/19/inactive-accounts-google-plus-
infographic/)

------
ditojim
i use my real name a lot of places on the internet, and i would prefer to
"sign in with G+" rather than use facebook (where I use my real name, like
most of you..)

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maeon3
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.

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

~~~
sixtofour
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.

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ristretto
I thought Google+ was more like twitter. It seems Google+ envies facebook's
"intimate friend groups" that cause people to upload personal photos and
events. Alas they don't realize that people are under "social fatigue" right
now after five years of frenzy. They are copying something that is already
going out of fashion. Anyway it's crazy. I only registered to Google+ with my
real name because i want to develop apps. Google+ is not my identity.

------
yanw
I'm not sure how much of that is improvisation on Eric's part or how much of
his original meaning was preserved in the paraphrase, either way I doubt he is
involved with the development of G+.

Not that there was much wrong with what was said, but if you're after some
real insight here is a recent interview with Bradley Horowitz were he touches
on psuedonyms, and basically says that the service will be more inclusive as
it matures: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5sRC67s9fg#t=26m25s>

