About to see if Google+ is wising up.

[vakkotaur]

Yes, I actually have a Google+ account. I don't use it very much because the drones at Google Don't Get It or at least Didn't Get It at first. They wanted, it seemed, to compete with FaceBook and in one way made it bug-for-bug compatible by insisting on "real names" or as FaceBook called them "wallet names" - a term Google carefully avoided, but pretty much copied. "We're an identity service" they claimed. Yet those of us who have been on the internet for years have online identities that we've used for years, are known by, and don't have name-collision problems that so-called "real names" do.

Since I could not use my identity (I respond to "Vakko" and "Vakkotaur" in real life, as many who have met me can attest. I have also gotten snailmail delivered to me under such names.) I never joined FaceBook[1]. I joined Google+ mainly out of self-preservation. I could keep up with a few people that way and at least Google seems to pay some attention to privacy and data portability. But since using my identity put me at risk of them screwing things up - including my Android cellphone, I was stuck using my "real name" which I prefer not to do. It's not that I keep it any secret. I just am more comfortable on-line using a name that I chose rather than the one I've inherited.

Now Google+ is offering up a shortcut URL. jmaynard took them up on it using the default, which is fine as he always used his given name online, save for game-like environments where it wouldn't really make sense. I was given the same choice, but declined the given URL and, naturally, asked for the name I prefer, citing that's my online identity. If Google has any sense, I'll get it. And perhaps can then safely change the account name to what I prefer, rather than what some Marketing Director or other useless type once decided was right for me. Then I might use G+ more. I might even cross-post (LJ, IJ, and G+ would be three copies, each in a different place. That's Good Practice if one wishes information to remain available.) If not, well, then my G+ account can languish as it has for some time. We'll see.

---

[1] That its founder claimed, "Privacy is an obsolete concept." is another, perhaps more effective reason I avoid FaceBook - privacy breach after privacy breach evidently all by design and intent. NO.

Comments

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Then they get to stay in the digital ghetto of their own creation while I actually use LiveJournal and such because they work the way way *I* want, not like some idiot Marketing Director or other Useless Person (one who if you followed thema round all day, you'd still wonder what they actually did that was at all productive in any way) believes.

I have run into the problem of not knowing who is who when so-called "real names" are the only choice. Even for people who use such. I went looking for Eric Raymond and got so many Eric Raymonds it was a pain to get down to the real ESR.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Yep, Google is getting better at that search thing, and associating names like that. It's still not the Right Thing To Do as far as I am concerned.

It's a kludge to try (and fail) to give people what they want and still let Google have its way. Sort of like the Gmail "search, don't sort" thing doesn't have folders... except it does, but done poorly and given a different name. Shades of McDonald's: "McDonald's will never have microwave ovens" - Ray Kroc. But those "q-ing ovens" use magnetrons...

I won't say that Google has jumped the shark, but it would not surprise me if some upstart company gave them serious headaches in the not too distant future, by simply not doing the things where Google says, "We know what's best for you."

google(something)

[tippydevil.livejournal.com]

..and then, in the Mileage May Vary tag ;)

I didn't sign up for a Google+ account when it came out. Partly because of the "Real Name" mess and privacy concerns, but honestly it was mostly because I need another login/signup/password to keep track of like a kick in the head. I do have a Facebook account to refer people to an e-mail address I actually check occasionally with pretty much nill personal on it aside from what I "like" and the list of other people on Facebook I follow, but that sort of mining could be extrapolated from my public Twitter account too, so whatever.

However I have a list of Gmail accounts, for various purposes, some with my Real Name, some not, as long as my proverbial arm.

Now I got occasional invites to G+ in various channels that were the side effect of my e-mail being in someone else's "recommend a friend" list and pretty much ignored them as the chatter of an electronic existence ... until YouTube. I happened to use Tippy DeVil as my username there as well, as that account (oh lord the Favorites I've seen) like this one, dates from when I was known as a Medieval-ish drag queen by that name.

Now they ran me into linking with SOME Google account in order to access the favorites, etc. but it was a legacy thing so Tippy DeVil was allowed to stay, though I would get nasty-grams occasionally because it did not fit their Logarithm for Reality.

So. Fine. I shortened the last name to the initial "D" and we've been humming along fine ever since :p

Re: google(something)

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think if I was willing to settle for 'Orvan Taurus' I could get away with it, but I do not want to settle and should not have to "get away" with anything.

Re: google(something)

[tippydevil.livejournal.com]

*smiles and nods* I understand ...or at least I try to. My personality has been sheering off shards under stress for so long I probably couldn't pick one Online Identity(tm) if you held a gun to my head, hence the half dozen gmail accounts I've created for logins and contacts for various things. Essentially cobbling together in Gmail what G+ Circles is supposed to do so well. Even within the "furry fandom" given a free form field for Species I input "Menagerie."

Come to that, I have a hard time picking an identity in RL sometimes too >.<

I respect your decision and I envy, in a grass-is-always-greener sort of way, those that have a name, an IDENTITY, that they identify with so strongly that it withstands a challenge like that.

I wonder sometimes if this sort of thing is a result of spending so much time in virtual spaces, where I CAN be any of a number of characters instead of one bound by what I've inherited, in all the shades of that word. Perhaps the immaturity on the internet means never growing out of that shape-shifting stage of growing up, where you are apparently supposed to "find yourself" and then stop looking. Still, I suspect some of it is just me, even before I knew what the hell a MUD or BBS was (Ti'char on my first RP bulletin board) I was probably ...fractured.

If I may continue to ramble in your comments, I was once likened to a small galaxy of stars rotating in space. No star or planet IS the galaxy, but they are PART of it and the center of gravity is empty space ;)

Re: google(something)

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I do understand the seeming indecision. When I am asked to classify myself I tend to answer that I am me. Various personality quizzes (some better than others) seem to place me right on the border of thing much of the time.

For me, Orvan is a construct. A suit I can wear. Yes, I am Orvan on SL, but that's SL. I can be Uffda as well - and while Orvan is a.. stable isotope.. is also mutable (flamingo, spider, waffle...). But I've been Vakkotaur (or at least Vakko) on every computer system where I've had any real choice in the matter, since at least 1996. I am not sure, but the name Vakkotaur might just predate the name Google.

As for the rest, perhaps it's that I found myself early or never had to look. "Find my self? I am here. I always *here*, by definition." Or that I grew up, or at least had a significant part of my life, before the world become an internet-connected place. I have said, "There is only one of me, and I am all of them."