Google+: Tools, Names, and Facebook

Several readers submitted stories about Google+ today. CWMike writes in with an article about the lack of developer APIs from Computerworld "Currently, external developers don't have any Google+ APIs or tools to tinker with. A Google spokeswoman said, 'We definitely plan to involve developers and publishers in the Google+ project, but we don't have specific details to share just yet. Please stay tuned.' The spokeswoman declined to say specifically if Google+ will be compatible with the company's OpenSocial set of common APIs for social networking applications." Anita Khanna writes "Facebook is trying real hard to block users migrating to google+. Although the recently announced Google+ social platform is still in private beta, it has generated enough excitement to have Facebook making some preemptive measures. Shortly after the announcement, Facebook made a peculiar change to their TOS that resulted in the ban of popular Chrome extension Facebook Friend Exporter. Over the weekend, another personal data migration tool, Open-Xchange, has also been deactivated." Finally, an anonymous reader notes that Google is requiring real names for profiles, and may have already suspended some users for using aliases.

Comments

Suspending users for not using real names?

[The MAZZTer]

Darn. :(

Re:Suspending users for not using real names?

[yincrash]

There can only be one.

Re:Suspending users for not using real names?

[Inner_Child]

Oh come on, it's not like everyone doesn't already know your real name. Just switch to Anakin Skywalker...

Re:Suspending users for not using real names?

[headbulb]

This should be in Rob Malda's circle.

Re:Suspending users for not using real names?

[ludwigf]

Darn. :(

RIP

I guess I won't be using it then.

[hedwards]

I was going to check it out, but if they're requiring real names, then I'm not going to use it.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[TheGratefulNet]

I had an invite and put it off trying it out.

until today. created an account and just had a bad feeling about the whole thing. really don't WANT a 'public profile' forced on me. don't want to get too far along and then have something happen to my data.

probably the best thing is a regular old website for a lot of us. social 'networking' is out of control and won't come back to OUR control any day.

google just FEELS wrong, these days. hard to explain, but its the constant watching over me that creeps me out. no, I never joined FB and my 1 day affair with g+ turned me off from the whole thing.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[hedwards]

Not really, I'm a douche in real life, consequently, I go online to be friendly and helpful, if people ever found out that I was helping people and being nice, my life as I know it would be over.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Enter: Diaspora

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[TDyl]

I've wondered for many years about probably 99% of social network users and if they even realise there are so many great sites out there beyond the scope of their interactions "on the wall" (or whatever the f*ck it's called). I know of several people that have almost lost all knowledge of the world beyond their social networks and have got themselves trapped in the "Zuckerberg Web".

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Diaspora has a Facebook page. Figure that shit out.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Tyr07]

Maybe if it was a professional connection site, sure. Something to eat away at facebook? Let people have their fun. That's why they're there, fun, entertainment, socializing. If you're going to compete you have to be more worth it, not less. I'd rather troll facebook with darth than google + with Anakin Skywalker.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[waddgodd]

no, irony was posting against pseudonymity as an AC

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Tyr07]

It's okay, one day google will complete it's mission. When it happens, all of your slashdot, twitter, etc will all be merged by google, google will own it all. Also no matter what you do, you will have a self replicating and updating profile. You will have posts in all areas automatically, slashdot, twitter, facebook, all of it. They will also be belivable that you did it, your google+ profile will take on a life of it's own and compete for friends. Your only chance will be to destroy your profile in a game of yahtzee.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[DemonGenius]

probably the best thing is a regular old website for a lot of us.

Exactly. We own our sites and everything on them. We choose how much of our identities we reveal on our websites. We also have absolute control of any trolls on our sites that aim to soil our reputations. For any software developer or tinkerer, it gives us a good excuse to write custom plugins for whatever CMS we want to use, or even build our own sites from scratch. Websites can even enable us to generate our own revenue if we're savvy enough to do so. For software developers, having a website presents the opportunity to attach your whole portfolio on a resume or CV. Building and running a website is infinitely more rewarding, in many ways, than spending time on any social networking site.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[DemonGenius]

For software developers, having a website presents the opportunity to attach your whole portfolio on a resume or CV

I should add this isn't limited to software developers.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Jeng]

Also no matter what you do, you will have a self replicating and updating profile. You will have posts in all areas automatically, slashdot, twitter, facebook, all of it. They will also be belivable that you did it, your google+ profile will take on a life of it's own and compete for friends./quote>

Now those are some features that would get me to actually sign up for a social network.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[NFN_NLN]

I've wondered for many years about probably 99% of social network users and if they even realise there are so many great sites out there beyond the scope of their interactions "on the wall" (or whatever the f*ck it's called).

I know of several people that have almost lost all knowledge of the world beyond their social networks and have got themselves trapped in the "Zuckerberg Web".

If this is true, then I believe Facebook serves a greater good. Much like AOL kept the sheeple safely away from the rest of the internet so will Facebook.
Honestly, think of how this would effect the quality of comments on places like slashdot if they allowed every "moran" to post on he.... actually never mind.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[lennier]

I've wondered for many years about probably 99% of social network users and if they even realise there are so many great sites out there beyond the scope of their interactions "on the wall" .

Oddly enough, there is this rare and little-used Facebook feature called "posting links". Unfortunately nobody ever uses this and therefore all Facebook users are doomed to completely forget the rest of the World Wide Web.

(sorry for the damage to your sarcasm meter, here's a replacement bulb for it)

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[ehrichweiss]

I was one of the early backers of Diaspora and it is, as far as I can tell, dead in the water. They barely have rudimentary social networking operational, much less something that handles real tasks. The choice to implement on Ruby/Rails was, IMNSHO, retarded since the limitations, like the inability to run more than a single instance of Ruby simultaneously, simply defeat anything that they develop. I think their project would have moved forward a LOT faster if they'd have chosen PHP.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Tyr07]

Yeah, until this secnario. 'You walk into the washroom, shut the door. Two minutes later your roommates yell out, DUDE, way to much information. You don't need to tweet that! "But I didn't tweet anything!" You yell back. Later you check your tweet. 'In the bathroom, waxing one off' Google knows, google knows /everything/

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that's important issue. If you won't use it, I guess Google will have an emergency meeting with policy makers and alter the rules or give you an exception.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[TDyl]

I agree, although the WWW should be about access for all and a "democratic" means of disseminating information; then again, am I trapped in the /. (or generally tech) web?

But having said that, I don't care, let the sheeple do what they want as long as it does not affect us; I know I can avoid them and the contamination they, fortunately, keep to themselves.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[TDyl]

Thanks for the bulb, you don't have a couple of extras do you?

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[WidgetGuy]

Boorgle? Or, better yet, Boorgle+.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[OakDragon]

no, irony was posting against pseudonymity as an AC

Whoosh...? or... no whoosh? Help!

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[LordLimecat]

hard to explain, but its the constant watching over me that creeps me out

Welcome to the internet. Not to freak you out, but all the sites are constantly watching you. Hope you didnt switch from gmail to hotmail or yahoo....

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[RJFerret]

...but if they're requiring real names...

They don't, and haven't as of yet, they want your "common name". Here's their remarkably readable brief policy.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[yuhong]

Personally, I would not go so far to require real names if I was doing a website. I'd prefer people be non-anonymous and use real names if they can (I do). But in the real world I know it is not always possible because of various problems.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Grizzley9]

What "feels wrong" to me is all these people that don't think the world is watching whatever they put online. If you don't want damaging info about you online, then don't post it. Granted others can and that is where tagging has some issues but as your mother should have told you: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[hedwards]

For folks with a really common name like say John Smith or Dan Johnson it's not much of an issue, but for those of us who have a relatively unusual last name, it is a lot more significant. I'm fortunate in that I share my name with somebody that's a lot more known than I am, but that's mostly because he's a physicist with a lot of papers written and I keep my name pretty much completely off the net.

The problem is that you're never sure how little bits of information will be accumulated and put back together. Virtually everybody that's being trained to not let information slip has that oh shit moment when they let the entire thing slip piece by piece and are confronted with it. Which is why it's fairly standard for training.

With the internet, if anybody does take an interest in a given person they can typically get an amazing amount of information, even if the person was discreet in the first place.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[hedwards]

For one thing, I doubt I'm the only one, and for another thing I don't really care what they choose to do. I'm perfectly fine not using Google+ the way that I didn't use Facebook, MySpace or Orkut. The point is that it would have been nice to be able to use something like this at times.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Abstrackt]

What is wrong with putting your REAL name on the internet THE ONLY thing that NEEDS to be public IS YOUR NAME. Not even a profile pic. Why is this such a big issue for people?

Says the AC. Anyway, some people behave a bit differently online or even flat out create a separate persona for one reason or another and don't want it to get back to them.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Hatta]

So says AC...

There are a couple problems with it. Google can still see all your private data. If you used G+ pseudonymously, it would limit the privacy implications giving it all to Google.

You may also want to hide your real identity from those you are networking with. I have certainly interacted with people online who I enjoyed and wanted to keep contact with (e.g. would add them to a social network) but don't necessarily feel comfortable inviting into my real life. Using a pseudonym gives me an extra layer of control.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[hansraj]

Wow, the sheer arrogance in this thread. Just wow.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Jason Levine]

I haven't put my full real name in my Google Profile, but I was caught between a rock and a hard place with Google+. I use my GMail address as a private address but much of my online interaction is via a pseudonym. (Slashdot is an exception from before I switched.) I can use my pseudonym with Google+ but then friends and family will see my e-mails as coming from that name. Or I can use my real name but then my pseudonym will be worthless since everyone will see my real name. For the moment, I've resolved this by using my initials (which I've used before online even where my pseudonym is used). Still, I wish you could show different names to different circles. (Though I'm sure that could get very complicated very quickly.)

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[0100010001010011]

Diaspora's greatest accomplishment was getting $200,641 out of Kickstarter Users.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[mhh91]

It has been in alpha for a really long time now.

Why did they generate all this buzz when their product isn't even ready yet?

With the launch of Google+, I don't think it'll have a chance in being something significant anymore.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Kunedog]

...but if they're requiring real names...

They don't, and haven't as of yet, they want your "common name". Here's their remarkably readable brief policy.

from that page:

Google Profiles requires you to use the name that you commonly go by in daily life.

Am I missing something? What distinction are you making between a "real name" and a "common name"? What Google is asking for appears to be exactly what the GP doesn't want to give (neither do I). Google does demand your real name.

Before anyone mentions the "modes" that page describes, they control who you appear to be to other people, not Google itself. And "other people" might not mean all third parties, just the other common users like you. And even if you like the idea of these "modes" then you still have to trust Google's intentions and competence to keep them from leaking.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[RoFLKOPTr]

but if they're requiring real names, then I'm not going to use it.

Umm... why not?

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Danny Rathjens]

Additionally, you can't create a profile for a non-person entity such as a pet or business.

At least they have some integrity. That statement right there is sacrificing a lot of money for a better system. I get so pissed off when some business expects me to do this or that on their Facebook page*. The interesting thing is that you don't have to be a user to view Google+ pages, so they could have stolen a lot of those business users away from Facebook but they chose not to.

Ford Motor Company certainly seems like a business to me. I'm sure they'll refer to Ford's google+ page as something other than a "profile" to lawyer their way out of that one. :)

One interesting thing I noticed is that even though I don't have any problems viewing Google+ pages with Safari/Firefox, a little box tells me there is a problem. It doesn't appear on Chrome. That's a little underhanded. I even checked to make sure everything worked just like it worked in Chrome.

It's quite obnoxious of google to claim that the version of firefox which was released with debian stable a year ago and is well-supplied with security updates is not a "modern browser". A googler I know says this alert is just because they haven't done any testing on these versions, but the red inline, scrolling pop-up is still quite obnoxious. I recommend they make it an ugly rectangular image file that says "Best viewed in Chrome at 800x600 resolution!" a la the mid 1990s. :)

Speaking of that annoying red pop-up, if they are going to confusingly subsume the use of red(well almost-red) for the currently active google feature in the top menu and the active Circles and the like, they really shouldn't also use red for the more conventional meaning of an alert/warning message like this. User interfaces should be consistent.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[RJFerret]

Am I missing something? What distinction are you making between a "real name" and a "common name"?

Huh?

Yeah, you are missing something apparently. Nobody uses my "real name", most people I associate with in RL don't even know my last name, nor I theirs. Some I only know by their online handles, despite spending weekends with them, hiking, traveling, etc.

I've never been called the name on my driver's license except my my mother, when I was a child, misbehaving. I'm quite sure Google isn't looking for that.

They are suggesting your common name, what most people you want to connect with would put in a search box to find you. What is strongly, uniquely associated with you. For me, that's RJFerret. Nobody would EVER put my real name in a search box to try to find me, as it's shared with a celebrity.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Ambvai]

Google Profiles requires you to use the name that you commonly go by in daily life.

Am I missing something? What distinction are you making between a "real name" and a "common name"? What Google is asking for appears to be exactly what the GP doesn't want to give (neither do I). Google does demand your real name.

Most people who know me, even with relationships of years and in person, don't know my legal name. Outside of where it's legally required, I've used a pseudonym based on my initials for over fifteen years. That pseudonym has become my common name-- it's more uniquely identifiable than my legal name, better known and I respond equally well to it.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[wvmarle]

It seems you're going to be a minority then. And it seems that the "real name" requirement shouldn't be taken so serious anyway, see other comments in this thread.

An estimate 10 million users since launch some two weeks ago, and growing exponentially with an expected 20 million by the weekend. Sure it's a mere fraction of Facebook's estimated 750 million (which surely includes a lot of fake/ abandoned/ company accounts while Google+ is much fresher and thus cleaner in that respect) - yet it's impressive. The amount of press it gets is also impressive. Google+ invites are being offered by my friends on Facebook even.

It makes me really wonder what it is why so many people are so happy to jump on the bandwagon and at least try out the new network. Do they all hate Facebook so much? Is it plain curiousity? The attraction of the Google brand? Is it really that much better than Facebook? Or simply the idea of "something new"?

I haven't tried it (yet) myself. Just curious what makes it that so many people are so happy to jump over - and why Facebook is clearly scared of Google+ (they're suddenly restricting export of your data), while they are obviously not worried about the numerous other social networks that are out there (such as LinkedIn, Hyves, and Google's own Orkut network, and many more).

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[SuricouRaven]

Because your current and future employers know how to google you, and will go digging up dirt when considering your employability. As you can't know who you'll be trying to work for, you can't even know what type of dirt they want. If you have ever said anything that could be seen as offensive to any religion, political party, social or economic class, sexual orientation, industry, lifestyle, race or nationality then that could cost you a job. The only options are to either use the internet pseudoanonymously, or be the most boring person ever to have lived.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[SuricouRaven]

Complicated, but essential if you are to have any form of seperation between personal, social and family life.

----
Hi Mom! I just got my new Google + account.
PS. Please don't try to look up this name, or else you'll find out about the highly detailed tentacle-porn artwork I made. With pokémon in.
-----

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[mwvdlee]

Yeah, I agree.
We're so much better than those arrogant people.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[mwvdlee]

On the subject. I've been looking for a CMS to host a simple blog for, among other things, demonstrating technical stuff like PHP/JS/JQuery code and HTML/CSS tricks. I'm currently leaning towards Wordpress simply because it's so easy to use, but I fear it won't be very convenient for these technical things. What would be the best CMS to use for demonstrating stuff like custom PHP, JS, CSS on some pages without disturbing the rest of the CMS?

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[Kidbro]

Be that as it may, for a vast majority of people real name and common name is identical (except that some middle names might be excluded in the later).

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[delt0r]

And what name do they use on FB? The vast majority use their common name.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[delt0r]

Do they all hate Facebook so much?

A lot of people I know on FB the answer is yea they hate it that much. They are there because their other friends are there and these "friends" sux at keeping in touch any other way.

Re:I guess I won't be using it then.

[bstender]

the buzz happened bc the idea met a hungry public. too bad they dont have millions of dollars, but the dream of a federated system seems here to stay regardless of how long it takes, or who makes it happen.

Testing

[pmontra]

G+ doesn't have apps yet but creating fake accounts on facebook is quite normal to test your apps without sending notices to the walls of all your friends or getting your friends's data into somebody's database (maybe your customer, maybe someone else). Fake accounts enforce the separation between what you do at work and the rest of your life. Either Google let's developers create them or writing and testing apps will get unpleasant.

Re:Testing

[Telvin_3d]

The whole point of Google+ over facebook is that it natively lets you separate your work life from your friends from your family from your old school buddies. Now, if you don't to identify yourself by name to any of those groups then social networking of any sort is not for you. Fair enough. But don't blame the tool for acting as designed.

Re:Testing

[BeardedChimp]

Actually you are not allowed to create fake accounts with facebook, you are supposed to create test accounts. I believe one of their blog posts threatened app and account closure if you were found to be created fake accounts as opposed to test accounts.
Since google+ doesn't have a developer API yet it doesn't really need test accounts. Once the API is released I'm sure they will come.

Re:Testing

[0100010001010011]

NO NO NO NO. The "API" and the "Apps" were when facebook turned to shit. I want a place to share photos. Tag people in them. See what is going on. THAT IS IT. No API, no "games", NO.

Google Apps

[Scared Rabbit]

it's okay, I can't sign up for an account anyway. Why you ask? It's because my email is hosted with google apps, and google apps doesn't support google profiles, which are required for google+. I'm the admin for the domain, so it's not a case of I haven't flipped a switch for myself and my users, it's a matter of google not offering support for it. I'd love to use google+, but as an adopter of other google services I find I'm left in the cold here. My google apps use is much more important to me than google+ is.

Re:Google Apps

[Spad]

Ditto, although at least this time they're promising profile support for Apps accounts "within the next couple of months" rather than the previously nebulous "coming soon".

Interestingly, if you try and sign into the Android + app with an Apps account and then follow the "Learn More" links it points you to an Apps help page on how to enable it, it just happens to be a 404 at the moment.

Re:Google Apps

[Necroman]

A Google employee confirmed that support for Google Apps is coming. I think the more interesting point is that it sounds like Google Apps users will be able to send G+ messages to people only within their Apps domain. So it sounds it will be a service sort of like Yammer for Google Apps users.

Re:Google Apps

[Scared Rabbit]

I would certainly hope that would be a decision up to the administrator of the particular apps domain.

Re:Google Apps

[Lorcas]

Weird as I have invited myself from my gmail.com account to my Google apps account and I have received the e-mail, I just couldn't sign up when clicking the link in the e-mail.

Re:Google Apps

[Scared Rabbit]

When you click an invite to google+ and you're logged into a google apps account you get a message that says:

Oops... you need a Google profile to use this feature.
Google Profiles is not available for your organization.

From the reading I have done on the web it says that google profiles are not yet available for google apps, though they are working on that in the future. I can't, in fact, find any other references besides your own saying anything except that google profiles are not yet available for google apps users.

Re:Google Apps

[Scared Rabbit]

It took two or three tries for it to actually show up in my mailbox at all. If you're logged into an apps account, going to plus.google.com doesn't work at all, you can't see anything beyond the error message about it not working because your organization doesn't support profiles.

Re:Google Apps

[interkin3tic]

You're an admin, but are incapable of signing up for a regular, free gmail account?

Re:Google Apps

[Cinder6]

I just signed up for G+ on my Google Apps account via an invite. A while back, I created a Google profile and put my Apps email address as the contact address. It often pesters me to create a Gmail account, but it's not that obnoxious, and it apparently lets me use G+.

Re:Google Apps

[mal0rd]

I think you get that message because your apps admin didn't enable profiles.

Anyway, I have an apps domain and got invited to google+ with my apps email and everything worked fine. I'm using it now.

I like it

[Is0m0rph]

So far I'm digging Google+. The Android app for it is nice too. Hopefully it doesn't get clogged up like Facebook with tons of games, quizzes, etc. I'm using G+ only for people I actually know unlike Facebook.

Re:I like it

[luder]

I'm using G+ only for people I actually know unlike Facebook.

Funny, I'm doing exactly the opposite. Facebook treats all of my contacts as friends and when I share something it has to be shared with all of them. Yes, I can exclude people, but for that I have to pick them one by one...

G+ circles let me organize my contacts in as many categories as I want and I can choose which circles will be able to see what I'm posting. So I can have something like this:

* Family
* People who would not be offended by goatse
* People I know
* Random people I met online
* People I subscribe too (a la twitter, I guess...)
* Rest of the internet

I'm very happy with the circles feature, it makes it very easy to manage all of this.

Re:I like it

[TheGratefulNet]

if you already KNOW those people, what the hell's wrong with email?

you people are butt-stupid sometimes, I swear! this is a tech forum and you kiddies are eating this social spying stuff up like there's no tomorrow.

you'll learn. the hard way, but you'll learn.

Re:I like it

[mdielmann]

Email can be tedious to configure for your groups, and deciding which groups to use, etc. Also, it requires some level of technical skill (or an unwieldy sending of duplicate data) to view a stream of posts in a single thread initiated by a single person. In defence of that last statement, try to remember how you feel about the 15 reply all emails about a topic that you aren't very concerned about.

Re:I like it

[lennier]

if you already KNOW those people, what the hell's wrong with email?

Theoretically, email (or RSS) should be able to do everything social networks can, and I'd be in favour of it, because I dislike walled gardens when there are perfectly good open protocols. Practically, though, there are a couple things missing with email:

1. Social networking is many-to-many communication. You want to tell short things to "all your friends" or subgroups of friends at once, not have to send an email multiple times. Email can do this, but it needs mailing lists to be really useful - otherwise it's only one-on-one - but managing mailing lists for email is too darn hard for everyone to do. You have to either run your own listserv, which means you need a server on a static IP and DNS with MX, and good luck getting that on home broadband, or you have to juggle lists in your email client and then you can't export them and synchronise them to all your friends. Or you use a web email client and/or a web listserv. But all the special purpose free web listservs seem to have died the death. Social networks took their place.

Social networks are effectively just easy to use web email clients with integrated listservs that do unified central authentication so people can rapidly search for friends and add and remove groups (lists). Someone could build a web app to be a listserv that does what Facebook and Google+ do but does it over email. And that would rock. Anyone wanna volunteeer?

2. Hard privacy is not actually how people work, and "if you already know these people" is only part of the answer with email. You also need to know their email address, and it's a non-trivial problem to get from one to the other. The email spam plague has made people really shy about giving out their email address unless you already know it. But in real life, there's a lot of people you sort of half-know but would like to get to know more - what's called the "third place" or "front porch space" problem. This idea of semi-public, semi-private space is something missing in modern isolated society which was present in older village communities. Facebook proved that it's really useful to be able to search for a person you know by real name and verify their identity by the set of shared friends you have in common. Facebook also does semi-automatic matchmaking where it prompts you for friends you might not yet have added. This turns out to be a very nice social feature.

Again, there's no reason why a good free web-based email listserv couldn't do all this - simply be a repository of fullnames-to-email-addresses and do matchmaking. It's just that nobody has built one yet. Possibly because of privacy concerns. But you can't have society without giving up some privacy, and too much privacy means everyone is born isolated and stays friendless and alone their whole life.

3. One big thing that social networks offer is the ability to share standardised schemas of information - like links, photos or invites to calendar events - which email has not yet, for whatever reason, widely adopted. Yet again, there's no good reason why this is the case. We've got iCal, for instance, but how many mail clients automatically send and detect iCal in your emails and let you add them to your calendar? Apple iCalendar maybe? But there's no good reason why every client couldn't. Yet they don't, at least not consistently, so it gets so frustrating to deal with iCal that in practice, nobody does.

Social networks are, again, just web email clients with a single shared address book and a bit of content-specific smarts. Turns out that's often the tiny bit of functionality that people want.

But we could certainly do it so much better using standard IETF/Web protocols if someone bothered to try.

Re:I like it

[lennier]

PS. For those of us oldies who remember the 1980s "online service" and BBS worlds, Facebook and the other social networks are very familiar. The BBS mail and chat scene had a similarly "cosy" feel which, for whatever reason, the Web and email doesn't. I think it has something to do with centralised identity and authentication, or with the ability for users to rapidly self-select chat communities and create ad-hoc groups in an environment like Facebook which in practice tend to be very small, localised and personal, while Web sites and mailing lists tend to be very large, impersonal, and slow and difficult to change. You can spin off a Facebook group or discussion within seconds, and almost overnight create a movement that can attract a huge number of followers. It's a lot harder to launch your own Web site or email listserv group, even if you have the IT knowledge to do it - it takes hours to days for DNS to synchronise, and there's no easy way to advertise a new mailing list - and that means you lose the moment of opportunity.

This is why Facebook and Twitter are being used in crises, revolutions and disasters, because they can respond almost instantly to changing circumstances. Could an open protocol do this? Yes, but DNS, SMTP and HTTP as currently designed and deployed weren't first thinking about mass grassroots flash-mob communication; they were built in the 1970s-80s assuming the major players would be corporate or university research departments, with a small number of large hadwired servers, operating on much slower timescales of months to years.

What we really need is a good open, fast publish-subscribe messaging and grouping protocol designed for today's highly mobile mass grassroots communication needs. But we don't have that, so Facebook and Twitter are the hacks to implement this over the Web.

Re:I like it

[Haedrian]

Yeah I'm happy with Google+ as well. The android app isn't avalible for my country (for some reason . . .), but I like how we can have basic Principles of Least Privilege.

Now once the rest of the rabble come in, I hope/guess each circle will have its own detailed permissions, so maybe I don't want to see Friends of My [Aquaintences]'s stupid app requests, but I don't mine my Friend of Friend's or whatever.

This has potential.

Re:I like it

[Fazed]

You do not have to add people one by one to the post visibility/privacy on your facebook posts. You can create groups of people and add the group, just like the circles on Google+.

Re:I like it

[Sygnus]

I'm using G+ only for people I actually know unlike Facebook.

Funny, I'm doing exactly the opposite. Facebook treats all of my contacts as friends and when I share something it has to be shared with all of them. Yes, I can exclude people, but for that I have to pick them one by one...

You can exclude lists as well as individual friends. Just like Circles, you create specific lists and when you don't want the members of that list to see a post, you exclude the list. The functionality is the same as Circles.

Re:I like it

[Is0m0rph]

If I want to post a picture from my phone for people to see and comment on why the hell would I want to send an email to all those people with the picture? Much easier to share it on my G+ page because my phone uploads every pic automatically to my private G+/Picassa album. Facebook I play some games like Castle Age and have hundreds and hundreds of friends.

Editor fail, Anita Khanna blogspam

[OverlordQ]

How about linking to the real source instead of a spam site stealing content.

I Sit Here in Slack-Jawed Amazement

[RobotRunAmok]

The only company I would trust LESS than Facebook with my personal data, the only company with an even more cavalier attitude towards privacy, is Google. I'm more likely to hire Casey Anthony to babysit my daughters.

I find it truly, genuinely, startling that anyone outside of spinster aunts, fourteen year-old girls, and twitchy Marketing Suits whack-a-mole-ing anything and everything termed "social media" are giving this thing a second, un-shuddering glance.

Re:I Sit Here in Slack-Jawed Amazement

[slimjim8094]

I trust Google vastly more than Facebook. I'm still not sure what, exactly, Facebook does with my data. Google on the other hand, tells me up front that they're going to datamine my information to use for advertising.

I'd much rather see ads for things I stand a chance of being interested in, than tampon ads for example. Additionally, Google hasn't had a major privacy issue (Buzz foolishness excluded) in 10 YEARS. Mark Zuckerberg was applying to Harvard 10 years ago, and Facebook has been much less than stellar with regards to personal information privacy.

So Google has a much better track record. This is, I think, difficult to dispute - but I'd be happy to read your argument.

Re:I Sit Here in Slack-Jawed Amazement

[interkin3tic]

The only company I would trust LESS than Facebook with my personal data, the only company with an even more cavalier attitude towards privacy, is Google. I'm more likely to hire Casey Anthony to babysit my daughters.

I hope you're exaggerating...

Re:I Sit Here in Slack-Jawed Amazement

[slimjim8094]

A pretty standard privacy policy. I think you may be misreading the content of that section... the portions:

You agree that Google may transfer and disclose to third parties personally identifiable information about you for the purpose of approving and enabling your use of the Services, including to third parties that reside in jurisdictions with less restrictive data laws than your own.

and

Google may share non-personally-identifiable information about you, including Web site URLs, site-specific statistics, and similar information collected by Google, with advertisers, business partners, sponsors, and other third parties.

are two separate components. Personal info will be sent, by Google on your behalf, to third parties - this sounds like application developers. That clause could be interpreted differently, but lots of places have a clause like "in order for us to do what you want, you need to allow us to do it" (see any youtube-esque site where you give them a license to distribute it, because otherwise they can't host it for you) and this sounds like that. The non-personally-identifiable info is what's sold to advertisers, and Google's never pretended any differently.

Re:I Sit Here in Slack-Jawed Amazement

[DJRumpy]

Yes but the piece indicating they are not responsible for said data once it gets into 3rd party hands is pretty clear, and doesn't seem to differentiate between personally identifiable, or anonymous data. Why leave it ambiguous?

As I said, it doesn't inspire confidence.

Re:I Sit Here in Slack-Jawed Amazement

[dudpixel]

You'll get a lot of anti-google replies - but you're absolutely right. Some people dont want their data used for advertising research, and in their twisted logic they think they should still be allowed to access google's services for free, even if google can't profit from it. There are paradoxes everywhere if you go down this path. So someone doesn't like advertising, but wants the company to survive, but then they dont want the company to survive, but they still want to use Gmail...its real confusing.

But if you ignore all those people (they live in a cave anyway, for fear that someone might see the real "them") I agree with your post.

Facebook can re-use your data and images however they please - its in their T&C's. Everything you post to facebook is theirs. So if your photos of your family end up on a billboard somewhere, well, you agreed to that when you signed up to facebook. Well, maybe they cant go that far...but facebook seem to act first and worry about the law later. By the time you are aware of your data being misused, its already too late.

Google on the other hand have offered photo sharing for a little longer, and with none of the same privacy issues. You can download your data whenever you want...and Google wont be using your data for anything other than statistics and adjusting their rankings etc.

There's a difference, and its why I dont post photos to my facebook account, well, not photos I wouldn't post publicly.

Lets hope G+ doesn't copy facebook tooo much.

Re:I Sit Here in Slack-Jawed Amazement

[RivenAleem]

But only thanks to Google, do I know who Casey Anthony is.

Re:I Sit Here in Slack-Jawed Amazement

[delt0r]

Twisted logic is assuming that Facebook is better *despite* its track record as quite a few post above seem to indicate. Personally i like g+ so far. I get a lot more control than i ever did on Facebook, and Google is far less likely to have serious security issues with the ajax or whatever its called these days.

Re:The lack of developer APIs is a good thing

[swanzilla]

If you want to publish from an Android app, command line, et al, you need that API. What we are looking for is some documentation Twitter has about their credentials, so we can start horsing around.

How do they know it's an alias?

[Qatz]

They can't prove may name is not really "Scroty McBuger Balls"

Re:How do they know it's an alias?

[Catbeller]

They'll just decide. Unless you want to prove you are really "Qatz" with your driver's license, you'll stay deleted.

Terrible misquote

[vlm]

Look at this terrible misquoting:

Currently, external developers don't have any Google+ APIs or tools to tinker with

My sources say the actual quote was

Currently, external developers don't have any Google+ APIs or tools to steal private user information under the cover of "gaming" and "surveys" and sell the info to spammers, HR departments, and miscellaneous unregulated data warehousing companies do be used against the end users

I know we're all supposed to be in the "Privacy Stockholm Syndrome Groupthink" so I am very naughty for preferring they continue to not get access. Everyone please face their telescreen, and direct their "Two Minutes Hate" toward me and not poor emmanual goldstein who is too busy recording episodes of "off the hook" for 2600 anyway.

Re:Terrible misquote

[rasmusbr]

I know we're all supposed to be in the "Privacy Stockholm Syndrome Groupthink" so I am very naughty for preferring they continue to not get access.

I don't know, I suppose it depends on whether you are prepared to pay to get rid of the ad profiling and corporate spying.

Back when services were supported by simple non-targeted ads, before ad-blockers, you could usually pay to get an ad-free service. Why can't I do that now?

In my opinion the spying and profiling is disturbing enough that I think it's time for governments to regulate the market. Digital service providers should be forced to offer a spying-free service to customers who who request it. The provider should of course be allowed to charge a reasonable market rate fee, as with any other service.

Re:Terrible misquote

[TheGratefulNet]

I want batman to regulate the internet.

we are thru trusting the government. nice idea but it does not work. no one with half a brain trusts the gov to PROTECT OUR PRIVACY.

we are thru trusting big corps. in fact, we never trusted them to begin with.

what's left?

its a nice idea that 'some good guy' protects us, but we've plum run out of trustable good guys.

Re:Terrible misquote

[lennier]

its a nice idea that 'some good guy' protects us, but we've plum run out of trustable good guys.

Tell me about it. Some flying boy scout in blue tights turns up and says he's championing the little guy, and next thing you know he's using X-ray surveillance and ultrasonics to violate five million citizens' privacy rights at once.

Tip: Yahoo can import Facebook email+name

[KeyserDK]

Worked for me. All you really need is email. Other tools can add the rest I think.

Re:Tip: Yahoo can import Facebook email+name

[edumacator]

I just tried this and got an error message saying there was an error processing the data. Maybe just a glitch.

Re:Tip: Yahoo can import Facebook email+name

[WillKemp]

Maybe just a glitch.

I doubt it. I'd say Facebook have disabled it.

Re:Tip: Yahoo can import Facebook email+name

[EkriirkE]

Same here, I was surprised it exposed everyone's email address when its not visible on their profile. Quick and easy, though!

Rowan Thunder?

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Seriously. That guy/girl has issues. If the government hasn't issued you a legal name change, you can't just conduct business with another name. Sure, you can try ... but good luck getting a bank account in your "preferred" name if it's not official.

Why they'd QQ about that is beyond me...

I go by "Gary"...

Re:Rowan Thunder?

[tuttleturtle42]

The thing about a legal name change, is that in some states they are expensive, especially for college students supporting themselves. As it says on Rowan's website, he's from California, and what it doesn't say is that in California legal name changes cost $400.

Personally there's no way I could afford $400 for a legal name change at this point in my life. For someone regularly employed, that might be a drop in the bucket, but for someone living paycheck to paycheck, or who's unemployed (like myself), $400 is something like a month's rent, which isn't something I can just spend on something else.

Yes, rowan really needs to get a legal name change as soon as this is doable, but I know plenty of people who have a legal name, and the name that they go by, just using the legal name for things like bank accounts and leases. They in fact even using the name they go by on google+.

Re:Rowan Thunder?

[Cruciform]

Sure you can. It's called "Doing Business As" here, and you pay something like 150 to 250 dollars to register. It's useful for people who write using pen names and don't want to have to make sure that every place they write for gets the proper name on the check come payment time.

Re:Rowan Thunder?

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Sure you can. It's called "Doing Business As" here, and you pay something like 150 to 250 dollars to register. It's useful for people who write using pen names and don't want to have to make sure that every place they write for gets the proper name on the check come payment time.

So there is absolutely no reason to complain about not having documentation for having documentation that states you're using a different name. Name change or DBA documentation, it comes back to the same thing ...

Which is why I'm calling BS on the article.

Re:Rowan Thunder?

[happylight]

Um.. plenty of people conduct business in a made up name. Authors, actors, people in marketing rely on having an easy to remember and easy to pronounce name for their business.

Re:Rowan Thunder?

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Um.. plenty of people conduct business in a made up name. Authors, actors, people in marketing rely on having an easy to remember and easy to pronounce name for their business.

Oh. So having a name for a business is the same thing as a personal name change. I stand corrected.

God, some people are so american. Then again, corporations in the USA have the same legal rights as people, as strange as that may sound. Not that it makes *any* sense, but there you have it.

Re:Rowan Thunder?

[tuttleturtle42]

Except, like I had commented earlier, it assumes you have the money. Not worrying about charges of that level must be nice, but there are plenty of people who /don't/ have the money to get the legal documentation.

Re:Rowan Thunder?

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Except, like I had commented earlier, it assumes you have the money. Not worrying about charges of that level must be nice, but there are plenty of people who /don't/ have the money to get the legal documentation.

In which case, why are they kvetching about needing a name change? Sounds like a rich-white-man-problem. See, not having enough to eat is a problem. Not having a safe place to live is a problem. Short of being named "Adolph Hitler" or "Seymore Butz", the desire to be addressed by a different name does *not* equate to the right to be addressed by a different name, and is *NOT* a problem.

You want to change your name? Fine. There's paperwork to do that. But don't expect it to be processed for free.

Re:Rowan Thunder?

[tuttleturtle42]

So someone who has a stalker doesn't have a real reason to change their name? Someone who's being harassed and abused doesn't have a real reason to change their name? Someone who had a family member who was abusive, or went to jail doesn't have a reason to change their name? Someone who is transgendered doesn't have a real reason to change their name? Someone who has a highly religious name who does not associate with that culture (causing them harassment because of their name), has no reason to want to change their name?

Abusive fathers who end up in prison, and not wanting to share your name with that person is /not/ a problem restricted to the affluent caucasian population.

In my mind who's ridiculous in this situation is California, I've looked into costs to change your name for Massachusetts and if its to avoid harassment or such, then it is free, because that's not a situation of just happening to want to change your name. In California there isn't this distinction, and name changes just cost $400.

Just happening to not like your birth name is different than your birth name causing panic attacks and will agree that if you just happen to want to change your name then you should expect to be charged for it.
There are plenty of reasons that states will in fact, have legal name changes go through for free. The fact that this isn't true in California is absurd.

Re:Rowan Thunder?

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

There are plenty of reasons that states will in fact, have legal name changes go through for free. The fact that this isn't true in California is absurd.

Well ... yeah. But that's not what I'm arguing. I guess if you want to jump in and make a bunch of crazy claims, then follow it up with some tangentially related statement that is correct doesn't actually mean you're contributing anything worthwhile.... If I were to respond to your criticism in the same way you responded to mine, it would finish with a sentence like the following.

There are plenty of reasons to join a conversation. The fact that some people can't spell is irrelevant if they're not part of the conversation.

Re:Rowan Thunder?

[tuttleturtle42]

No, every statement I've made is completely relevant. I have spoken to Rowan and know Rowan's reasons for wanting a name change. I've also been told that their not public-knowledge but can share that fall into the 'preventing harassment' category. It's relevant that in other states this would be free, because if Rowan was in a state other than California, then he'd already have had a legal name change. As it is, he's trying to save up money for the legal name change because it'll cost him $400, despite the fact that using his legal name leads to harassment in multiple ways. He is in fact, not a "rich-white-man", and he chooses to use a name that he can both identify with and prevent harassment with in every way other than legally, before he can afford the legal name change.

Re:Rowan Thunder?

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Dude, asking people to call you "Rowan Thunder" is asking to be harassed. So yes, I'll believe you that Rowan is being harassed. But I can tell you without ever having met him/her, that the harassment isn't because of his/her name, it's the way he presents himself. I have a feeling that the smug, world-owes-me-something-and-I'll-act-however-I-want tone in his whining webpost isn't confined to the web. And speaking as a person who was teased a lot while growing up, *I* would tease someone who acts like this. Maybe not in a mean-spirited way, but I would certainly go out of my way to point out that drawing attention to yourself by being loud and obnoxious is going to come across poorly.

Which I guess was my original point. Whiney kid wants a name change. So do it. $400 isn't much money, That's the savings of switching from starbucks to coffee time coffee for a year. Or going from super-uber-mega-speed internet to regular speed net for a year. Or the price of 5 of those obnoxiously over-inflated brand name shirts he's wearing. Or the price of 10 novelty geek-tee-shirts.

So if Rowan wants to complain that he's gotta pay for something in life because of where he lives, Rowan needs to grow up and learn that the world doesn't revolve around him. If he lived in the country, he'd complain he didn't have high speed internet. If he lived in Alaska, he'd complain that the government didn't provide the same services on the beachfront that they provide in Florida.

I guess I'm saying that Rowan QQ about how tough his life is, while kids are dying in africa and the solution to his problem is actually quite simple ... he'd just rather whine about it than actually fix it. I'm glad he's found the spotlight, I can only imagine what he'd do if he wasn't the centre of attention.

Now get off my lawn.

Re:real names?

[Barbara, not Barbie]

You're also a fool if you don't try to stay pseudonymous

My name, email and home address are all over the net, and have been for years. I'm still alive.

Maybe it's just paranoia...

[Scared Rabbit]

But I posted about this exact problem on facebook last night, and now my facebook account has been "unavailable" due to "maintenance" all day, lol.

Re:"real names for profiles"

[marcello_dl]

And, strategically such a move should have been done later.
1 get some FB fodder
2 some anonymous douche will harass people eventually
3 ???
4 overreact and kill all anonymous accounts. "we had no other choice blah blah"

 

Computerbabies

[Fuzzums]

Waak waak. Lack of API's.
They want it all and they want it now and they want it for free..
Cry babies...

Require Real Names

[nurb432]

In today's world, that isn't acceptable and a breach of ones privacy. If they dont change that policy they can forget it ever being 'the next big thing'.

Re:Require Real Names

[Haedrian]

Right, just like what happened to Facebook.

Oh wait.

Real Names? Funny..

[Someone Awful]

Wasn't it Google's former CEO who talked about children who are growing up now needing online aliases (having to change their names)? To separate their digital and real lives.

Real names is a killer

[gweihir]

Companies start to have policies that regulate what you can post with your real name. Prospective employers check what you have done online, also in social networks. I could not post here with regard to anything security or economically related if I had to use my real name.

Seems Google is increasingly out of touch with reality.

Re:Real names is a killer

[Haedrian]

1. Unless you have a very rare name, there will be more than one person with your name

2. Put the stuff you DON'T WANT OVER THE INTERNET in its own circle. Put the messages about how you're saving children in Africa in the public one. Its meant to be used like that. Its designed to be used with these groups.

3, If you're leaking company stuff to the internet I think a social network is the last place to do it.

Re:Real names is a killer

[Cro Magnon]

Also, if you want to post something but don't want it under your realname, there are plenty of other places to post it. It's common knowledge that Cro Magnon has plans of ruling the world, but good old MyRealName is as pure as the winter snow.

Ignoring the Poll, But...

[rueger]

Now that all of the Usual Suspects have crapped all over G+, Facebook, MySpace and anything more technologically advanced than a BBS running on a Commodore 64 or usenet...

If you hate social networking sites, then ignore them! Millions of people find them pretty damned handy. Like any other tool, there's good and bad, and no shortage of idiots and/or corporations that can make a good experience into a nightmare. Same is true of e-mail, or IRC, or plain old letter mail.

Of course maybe you're the guy who announced that he would never again write a letter or mail a check once he got his first piece of unsolicited junk mail from Publisher's Clearinghouse.

I genuinely am liking G+. It's early days yet, but it seems to do just the minimum that you would want in social networking, but without the layer upon layer of crap that Facebook has added over the years. Less is more!

Do I trust Google more than Facebook? At the end of the day, yeah, I do. I trust Google to archive my e-mail, but I wouldn't for minute give Facebook the same choice. It's not a black and white issue - there are some things that I will trust Google with, and a lot that their servers will never see. Likewise I do have Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts (and possibly an old MySpace account somewhere) but am pretty careful about how much information they can get their hands on. In Facebook's case it's the utter minimum.

But oooh! Privacy! That boat sailed a long time ago. If you think that you can be active on-line and maintain anything more than a limited amount of privacy you're dreaming. You're constantly creating a stream of data transactions on-line. You maybe able to limit those somewhat, but ultimately you're leaving behind a trail that will likely be around for years or decades. Deal with it - that's the reality of the time we live in.

Unless you're the guy who has refused to own a telephone for eighty years because you were pissed off about having your name and address published in the White Pages.

Finally I'll say a word about the G+ app for Android phones - it's one sweet little item, that seems to work flawlessly on my crappy Moto Charm.

Re:Ignoring the Poll, But...

[Urza9814]

Couldn't agree more. I'm loving G+. And unlike Facebook, Google has proven quite happy to give you all of your data in an open format. And unlike Facebook, the privacy options of EVERYTHING on your page and everything you post is an integral part of the UI, not something that seems like it was tagged on as an afterthought. Every post you make it shows you exactly who it's going to be shared with. Makes the 'oh, we update the privacy settings and now all your shit is public' stuff that Facebook always pulls a lot less likely.

My only problem with G+ is that there's no way to form groups. Facebook groups/fan pages SUCK, even Facebook seems confused about what excatly they're for, so I was eagerly awaiting G+ to see what they would do about this. And they've got nothing at all. Hopefully that will be coming in the future though...at the very least as some kind of integration with Google Groups.

Events would be nice too. Add Google Calendar and Google Groups, and G+ will have everything I need. Add the API too and it will have everything I want.

Re:Ignoring the Poll, But...

[tepples]

If you hate social networking sites, then ignore them!

I don't have a Facebook account. I graduated in 2003; by the time Facebook opened, my college e-mail account had been shut off. Since then, I've used that as an excuse to ignore social networking sites, along with the perceived dangers of spreading myself too thinly. But it just irks me when I find a web site that sells a product that I want to buy (such as a monofin swimsuit) but won't let me learn about the product until after I have logged into Facebook.

Re:Ignoring the Poll, But...

[eddy the lip]

Considering the number of online services Google has, I would be very surprised if we didn't start to see them get integrated into G+ in one way or another. Calendar, Docs, Groups, Reader....they could end up with one seriously killer set of functionality, all in one place.

Re:Ignoring the Poll, But...

[Urza9814]

Yea, from what I've read that is the plan. I just hope they're integrated well enough that they become a part of G+, not a separate entitity accessible _through_ G+.

Re:Ignoring the Poll, But...

[Catbeller]

You were NOT required to be in the phone book. Unlisted number - are you too young to remember? We NEVER had to give up our privacy until recently. This was a choice we let be made for us.

Re:Ignoring the Poll, But...

[tepples]

You were NOT required to be in the phone book. Unlisted number - are you too young to remember?

Yet phone companies got away with charging extra for an unlisted number.

Re:Ignoring the Poll, But...

[mdmkolbe]

If you hate social networking sites, then ignore them!

Easy to say, but now that many clubs and social activities are being organized solely via Facebook, not being in the soc-net club is actually quite difficult. I'm a fairly quiet guy so I don't have much need for things like Facebook and frankly I don't trust Facebook, but clubs that organize via Facebook kind of force me into it.

Re:Ignoring the Poll, But...

[xtieburn]

'If you hate social networking sites, then ignore them!' - You cant without ostracizing yourself as more and more social events run through facebook pretty much exclusively. That doesnt mean they are useless or even that those people dont use them, it does mean that they will continue to complain bitterly about them though.

Strawman Number 1: 'Of course maybe you're the guy who announced that he would never again write a letter or mail a check once he got his first piece of unsolicited junk mail from Publisher's Clearinghouse.'
Or you are the guy who complains about the junk mail even today long after the practice was started, which is... well perfectly reasonable, junk mail costs us millions a year to deal with. The crap that social networks throw up shouldnt just be forgotten about because its a few years down the line. This shit _can_ and _should_ still be fixed.

'That boat sailed a long time ago.' - No, no it didnt. Not according to the law, not according to millions of people who still fight for it, not even according to half these companies who make promises about it and lose valuable PR when those promises go wrong. You have to be naive to think data you throw up will be secure, but youd have to be weak or daft to just accept it without complaint.

Strawman Number 2: 'Unless you're the guy who has refused to own a telephone for eighty years because you were pissed off about having your name and address published in the White Pages.'
Or you are the guy who has his name and address removed and wants that kept private, which is exactly what millions of people do and want.

Extracting friends list etc is trivial

[Urza9814]

Since it says it was a chrome extension that was banned, I have to wonder how hard it would be to get around that ban. Could probably make a greasemonkey script or something too, I don't really know, haven't messed with that stuff...but I'm assuming all Facebook is doing is revoking app access codes, right? So...use theirs!

Load this page:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/

Scroll a bit down the page and you will see the following link:

Friends: https://graph.facebook.com/me/friends?access_token=...

Clicking that link (not here, but on the actual page) gives you a valid temporary access token. It's only good for 2 hours...but reload the page and you get another 2 hours! Then just pop that access code in and you can pull up a list of all of your friends, well formatted for a script to handle...and it gives you their IDs, which you can use to scrape data from their page in the same manner. How is Facebook going to block this, short of crippling their own developer pages?

Re:Extracting friends list etc is trivial

[dykofone]

I used a pretty easy method:

- Open a Yahoo mail account. Use their 'import facebook to contacts' feature.
- Export your Yahoo contacts to a CSV file.
- Upload the Yahoo/Facebook CSV file to your Gmail contacts, perhaps in a 'facebook' group.

Google+ automatically uses your contacts to recommend contacts for your circles, so you know pretty quick if your facebook friends are on G+. Has worked well for me so far.

Re:Extracting friends list etc is trivial

[WillKemp]

Open a Yahoo mail account. Use their 'import facebook to contacts' feature.

It doesn't work any more. I don't think Facebook want Google+ stealing their userbase!

Re:real names?

[tepples]

Okay. What are they then?

http://www.pineight.com/contact/

I would say you don't have children.

I have no children of my own, and watching my aunt's children probably doesn't count.

Legal name change?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, WTF is this!
Where I'm from, I can wake up and decide I'm going to change my name. I start using it, and that's my fucking name.
The government don't own my name.

Your name is established by use. Official documents can be changed later.

Re:Legal name change?

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

Seriously, WTF is this! Where I'm from, I can wake up and decide I'm going to change my name. I start using it, and that's my fucking name. The government don't own my name.

Your name is established by use. Official documents can be changed later.

How's that work when you pay taxes? Or open a bank account? Wherever you live must be a great place to launder money.

Re:real names?

[lennier]

My name, email and home address are all over the net, and have been for years. I'm still alive.

But that's awful! It means just anyone could send you a letter, talk to you about work, or even pick up the phone and send their cootie-filled voice waves to you right in the privacy of your own home! And all your so-called "workmates" and "real life" "friends" could be tracking your reputation and status and fashion sense right now and could treat you horribly if you did something quirky and creative, like turn up naked and dump rancid dogfood on their lawn in the middle of the night. After all, this is America, and it's a man's right to hide from his neighbours and wear a Guy Fawkes mask on his head at all times! Without total anonymity, how could our forefathers have held town hall meetings? Could Barack Obama have ever gotten elected if people knew his real name and face and what his school grades were? Of course not!

Won't somebody please think of the privacies!

Why not have two emails/profiles?

[rsborg]

My google apps use is much more important to me than google+ is.

So do what I do, and just run your public google profile in a separate account on a separate (instance of) browser. Route all your (public) emails (if you choose to gmail) into your domain account.

I see no reason why there has to be a choice between the two.

Re:"real names for profiles"

[Haedrian]

It is a social networking site. If you don't want people to know your real name make one up which looks real

What I think it is is an attempt to not have the mess facebook has with companies having facebook 'person names' and then tagging the crap out of people.

Facebook strangers

[tepples]

It is known that there are differences between what somebody not logged into Facebook sees and what somebody brand new to Facebook sees. If one is not allowed to create a Facebook account, how else is one supposed to know what one's "Facebook strangers" can see?

Re:real names?

[feepness]

My name, email and home address are all over the net, and have been for years. I'm still alive.

And you have lovely hair.

Anyone want an invite?

[chalsall]

This was done on an earlier thread, but it's scrolled off the front page, so many might miss it...

Invitations are available again. If anyone would like one, e-mail me at gpluss@wabbit.com, and I'll send you one.

(Note to spammers -- this is a throw-away e-mail address. Feel free to add it to your lists -- it will go straight to spam after a few days.)

(Note to everyone else -- I hate spammers, and promise not to add the sent e-mail address to any lists, nor use them myself.)

Re:Anyone want an invite?

[StripedCow]

Yes, please please pleeeease! Send me an invite!

My email is: mark.zuckerberg AT facebook.com

Re:Export your Facebook Users

[WillKemp]

A bit of a pain, but works well.

Not any more, it doesn't! I assume Facebook have disabled it...

Facebook's anti-competitive behavior

[bill_mcgonigle]

I tried adding my Facebook e-mail address to a 'status slaves' circle, and then included it for updates.

Facebook is truncating them at 50 characters, apparently only when they come from Google's servers.

If there's somebody at the FTC who's been wanting to poke his bureaucratic nose up in Facebook's business, they sure are making it easy.

The Proprietary Phase is over. Facebook needs to participate in confederation if they're to survive. But it looks like they're going to take the 'kicking and screaming' approach.

Re:real names?

[WillKemp]

My name, email and home address are all over the net, and have been for years.

That's the modern equivalent of having your name, address, and phone number in a telephone directory - like everyone used to have not that long ago.

Re:The lack of developer APIs is a good thing

[WillKemp]

[......] I wish there were a way to hide all content from applications.

There is. You can completely disable the application platform in your account. Privacy settings --> Apps and web sites. You'll never be bothered by apps again.

Re:real names?

[hubie]

I'm dating myself, but there is this funny scene in The Jerk when Steve Martin is working at a gas station and the new phone book arrives...

Re:real names?

[SuricouRaven]

The telephone directory doesn't also supply information on your political views and taste in porn. A google-check on someone does.

Re:real names?

[WillKemp]

The telephone directory doesn't also supply information on your political views and taste in porn. A google-check on someone does.

A google check on me doesn't!

Could they be blocking manual scraping?

[Cyno01]

I was just going through all my friends on facebook about an hour ago, generating a list of email addresses of people i actually talk to to invite to G+, by hand, just copy and paste. Then when i was adding those people to my circles, there were one or two addresses i couldnt remember who they belonged to (i had a list of maybe 40). I went to my recently closed tabs and tried to find who they belonged to, but found that profiles i'd viewed just a few minutes earlier no longer had their email addresses under their contact info.

Invitation:)

[tomkanka]

Is there any chance for an invitation for me. Thanks in advance. tomkanka@gmail.com

Real Names.

[DarthVain]

Personally I think it is a good thing. If you don't want to be apart of a social network, then don't.

That said I think the whole point of the circles thing in Google+ is that you don't actually have to share everything with everyone. Also the privacy is better. You can do the same in FB, but it is clunky, and the privacy issue is still there.

I don't like the fact that I have to remember two names for some people because they don't want to use their real one.