

Are Real Names Required For Real Socializing? - cwan
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/08/are-real-names-required-for-real-socializing.html

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ajscherer
Real names enabled facebook users to quickly realize the "real world" social
network within facebook, rather than building an entirely new network.

I don't know email addresses or commonly used online aliases for even 10% of
the people whose names I know. I'm fairly confident that I could find just
about any of my cousins or high-school classmates on facebook in minutes.
Without them having put their real name on their facebook profile, I don't
believe I would be able to find them at all. Surely it's clear how that leads
to facebook having a much bigger network much faster than a service that
doesn't use real names. Real names are the key my brain uses to identify
people.

I also think there is a psychological impact of constantly looking at pages
filled with names that you recognize. If you swapped out all the names on my
facebook feed with random hn usernames, I think I would feel different while I
read it.

All that said, I do agree with most of what Fred Wilson is saying. I hate the
impulse to "civilize" or "sterilize" the web as well, and I'm especially
concerned when politicians start with that sort of talk. Real names make sense
_only_ for facebook or a facebook replacement (good luck with that), because
in my mind the definition of facebook is "the thing you use to communicate
online with people you know in real life."

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wccrawford
I know who my friends are. Their online nickname doesn't change that a bit.

Heck, when I lived in California, everyone there called me by a short form of
my internet nick at the time. Most people didn't know my real name, and the
few who did still called me what everyone else called me. It didn't change
anything. My boss even wrote my check out to that name once, with my real last
name. I had to have him correct it.

I think some people are scared of things being different, and socializing on
the web is vastly different than socializing in your home or a bar. This 'real
names' thing is an attempt to hold on to a little bit of the socializing they
are used to. It will pass.

