Is Google+ a Cathedral Or a Bazaar?

An anonymous reader writes "With its recent mass suspension of accounts, Google has highlighted its desire to create a social network that is very different to the way many (including those whose accounts were suspended) would want to see it. The metaphor of the Cathedral and the Bazaar used for software development can be applied to the two types of social networks being proposed by Google on the one hand and the pseudonym supporters on the other. Google's Cathedral model emphasizes order and control whilst the bazaar model supports users who can be anonymous, have multiple identities, interact with anyone they please, and remain unobserved."

Comments

Why not both?

[wiedzmin]

Why not allow both and let the userbase sort out who they do and do not add on their professional (cathedral) and personal (bazaar) accounts? Because frankly, we already have a cathedral (LinkedIn) and a Bazaar (Facebook), so if Google wants to attract those users, they better be flexible enough to accommodate them.

Re:Why not both?

[DJRumpy]

It's not as profitable to Google if they can't link an online identity to a fake/anonymous account. Having a 'real' person linked to those accounts would be very profitable indeed, especially to bidders in the marketing/sales areas. Google has always been a pimp of sorts for your personal data. They just haven't gone to these extremes before.

I still spend very little time on Google+. There just isn't any activity there as of yet, and not many personal friends. I expected it to reach a critical point sooner but that hasn't happened in my circles as of yet.

I'll hold on to the account, if just to reserve my account name, but other than that? Meh...

Re:Why not both?

[mbkennel]

The true primary difference between the two is that in the ordered, regimented version, one can best correlate the real names with off-line marketing (and other) databases.

That means, that for Google, one is much more profitable than the other.

Re:Why not both?

[bonch]

Google needs to harvest your personal data to make money.

Re:Why not both?

[vlm]

Why not allow both and let the userbase sort out who they do and do not add on their professional (cathedral) and personal (bazaar) accounts?

google won't let us filter out the comment spammers. They'd have to add a flag for each user as "real" or "anonymous coward" and then add a filter flag so we don't have to see the AC/spammers.

You can control who sees your posts in the circles. You cannot, more or less, control who spams your comments, for better or worse.

Circles are unidirectional, not bidirectional like other services.

A typical failure mode would be I add wiedzmin to my circles, and whenever you post, I spamflood your post comments, and there's nothing you can do about it at this time. Needless to say, I'm not going to behave like that using my real name, so you need not worry. Allowing an infinite collection of ACs in would only make it worse.

More likely accounts would mostly be used for post spam than pure harassment. Browse /. and look at the score -5 to 0 posts for a good idea of what anonymous G+ would mostly look like.

Re:Why not both?

[ccguy]

It's not as profitable to Google if they can't link an online identity to a fake/anonymous account.

If you think google can't link your fake account with lots of real data you're very naive.

Re:Why not both?

[hedwards]

Considering that they're presumably mining the circles and the posts for data to match up ads with, I'm not really sure that it really matters what the real name on the account is. As I'm sure that they'll have plenty of data with which to match ads accurately.

Re:Why not both?

[MozeeToby]

If you use Google services enough for them to have profitable data on you, they are almost certainly able to identify you, if not by name, then by everything the advertisers care about (location, interests, age, profession, family, etc). What difference would it make to the advertisers if the blog of information has a name attached to it or not?

Re:Why not both?

[darkmeridian]

Why do people think that Google cannot link an online identity to a fake/anonymous account? The only problem is if the profile is maintained by a spammer who doesn't use any of the other services linked to the Google Account. Otherwise, if the person is a real person using a fake name, Google still knows a shitload about you, and the real name doesn't really matter. As long as the person stays logged in using Google+ while searching or using the email, or browses the web, then Google already knows more about that person (who he interacts with, what interests him, etc.) than he does.

Re:Why not both?

[garatheus]

You have an account name? I'm not on G+, but I would have thought that it's so deeply intertwined with your Google profile, that it would simply just use what-ever-it-already-was.

Then again, I'm no Google fan boy, and am deeply distressed that even though I want no part of Google+, their crappy +1 pages are now everywhere, so I have to constantly browse the Internet using InPrivate / Incognitio (depending on the browser that happens to be open) just to try and forego it showing up with my Google account showing up for the +1 integration.

Re:Why not both?

[wiedzmin]

> Implying Facebook is a Bazaar. ...uh, Facebook isn't a Bazaar, brother sir.

It's a cathedral. The definition of conformity.

I disagree. I use a fake name on Facebook. 50% of my "friends" use a fake name on Facebook. 99% of people have different applications all over their walls, some have so many that their pages barely load. Facebook is anything but a cathedral, except for those users that chose to use it that way.

Everyone's page looks the same, same colors, same information, same photo gallery (containing different photos).

Everyone's Google+ looks the same too, from that perspective. Look and feel is not the issue at hand here, identity is.

Re:Why not both?

[Kamiza Ikioi]

I agree with you. Here's why: Because we'll never be satisfied until we've pigeon holed Google+ into a "It's just like _________" explanation, just like everyone said that Facebook would fail because it's too different from MySpace, didn't allow animated gifs, didn't allow page customizations, blah blah blah (I'm talking to you MG Siegler).

Now people are saying the same about Google+. Only this time they want to criticize it both for how it is like Facebook and how it is unlike Facebook.

Google+ is just like... Google+. It will live or die on its own merits, least of which is the animated gifs or even how anonymous it is. Yes, because if anonymity were the measure of a successful service, 4chan would be surpassing 4 billion users by now. Every service is anonymous if you lie convincingly. Heywood Jablowme isn't trying hard enough.

Re:Why not both?

[smallfries]

You have mixed up circles and non-circles in your description. If wiedzim made a public post then you would see it and could spam the comments. But if he posted it to his circles, or probably his extended circles as well, then you would not see it and could not comment on it at all. So wiedzim does have control over whether or not you can spam his comments.

Re:Why not both?

[Artifakt]

Basically the advertiser thinks of it as either a one step process or a two step, depending on their model of what's most efficient.
Either they 1. just want to know whatever will motivate person X to give them money.
Or they want to first know 1. whether person X actually has any spare money, that the advertiser can get without too much bother, and then learn 2. whatever will motivate that subgroup of person Xes, the ones with spare money and without issues that will become too much bother, to give the advertiser some.

Advertisers only care about locations if their profit margin depends on where they ship to. They only care about age if someone has decided they will get very few sales to people above a certain age AND more complaints to be resolved, tech support requests or some other cost factor from those people of a certain age, (usually defined by the advertiser as older than age N, where N is often about 35, but sometimes around 47). An advertiser will want any information, however private, if they think it will impact whether an initial sale is made, whether there's a chance of repeat business, and whether there's a chance of a cost being incurred in the future.
            An advertiser that has committed to prescreening likely clients usually only wants the client's name, if it has been shown they see more successful sales to a particular ethnic group, and the last name has some power at identifying such groups (So an advertiser just might care if your last name identifies you as likely to be Irish, as in O'Brien, or Chinese as for Wong, and yet not care about it at all if your last name is Lee, (because they don't know if its English based Lee or Korean based Lee), or if it's Kovalski, suggesting you are of Polish extraction, as they may have a study that says the Chinese American community, on average, pays their monthly installments on time, The Irish community tends to run late, and the study didn't look at Eastern Europeans one way or another. ). Often, these studies are full of biases from the people who run them, or the people who commission them, and usually get told what they want to hear. There are plenty of advertisers in the US, for example, who expect certain ethnicities to be harder to sell to, or likely to default, or to make scenes or file lawsuits - they just don't usually go around announcing that they make decisions based on this factor.
      Advertisers that have decided prescreening their sales base is worth it will try to find ways to collect data even if its considered very private, like medical histories. For example, an advertiser who has come to greatly detest nuisance lawsuits is likely to want mental health data or court records if they think it will cut down on such suits, and generally considers such things as HIPAA rules government over-regulation if they get in the way.

Re:Why not both?

[vlm]

Point remains... "real people" are muzzled on G+ if they permit ACs, because ACs will spamflood any public discussion.

Re:Why not both?

[vlueboy]

It's not as profitable to Google if they can't link an online identity to a fake/anonymous account.

If you think google can't link your fake account with lots of real data you're very naive.

Ha. They ALL can. It's not like the FBI always goes to just Google for matters of USA national security.
After all, when it comes to stuff like CP or other crime prosecution for stuff mishandled by law agents, people still effectively use these defenses:

• the wireless router allows for my neighbor/sister/visitor to use my IP
• the DHCP from my ISP changes often and that IP was not US at the time
• the "haha! my other *housemates*/dorm people/evil ex used this living room PC back then"

Back on topic, to the advertisers who aren't that serious about your "exact identity" for the purposes of serious conviction as the law is, such ambiguity as the above inspires hating your services, because it means LOST AD CASH. To them many "maybe's" is not equal to just as many "solid yes's."

Re:Why not both?

[jythie]

*nods* agree. I have a feeling the real issue is them trying to figure out what kind of environment they will have and what kinds of users they wish to attract. There are advantages and disadvantages to both models, as there is the idea of making a hybrid one... and each of these 3 solutions will help or harm different populations.

Re:Why not both?

[jythie]

Facebook tries to be a cathedral, but lacks enforcement. If they actually applied all their rules (such as no fake names, no game accounts, no friending people you do not know in real life, no friend whoring in games) they would be VERY cathedral like.. but instead they apply them pretty randomly. So it is a cathedral that has become a bazaar due to a couple crooked cops running around yelling at how shocked they are to find gambling going on.

Re:Why not both?

[vux984]

"Mostly accurate" data isn't good enough for "beyond a reasonable doubt" which is the standard in a criminal prosecution, but its plenty good for pretty much anything google wants to do with it.

Re:Why not both?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many marketers don't care if you have any spare money. That's between you and your credit card company :) In fact, when I worked in sales briefly my boss told me that people without spare money are prime targets. People who don't have spare money typically don't have it because they spend everything they make with no planning, which is exactly the kind of people marketing wants to target.

Re:Why not both?

[blair1q]

G+ allows you to decide which of your circles you treat as a cathedral, and which you treat as a bazaar. And which you treat as a kinky sadomasochistic torture dungeon.

Re:Why not both?

[rwv]

cathedral (LinkedIn) and a Bazaar (Facebook)

I thought cathedral was "They Control It" and bazaar was "You Control It".

Google+, Facebook, and LinkedIn are all Cathedrals.

Diaspora is a Bazaar.

Re:Why not both?

[rtfa-troll]

Its also plenty fine for law enforcement since it's sufficient to get a search warrant. After they watch you and then search you then they have to have "sufficient" proof or a planted hard disk in order to proceed.

Re:Why not both?

[rtfa-troll]

I think they can; but they don't. There's a big difference between what they could do and what they believe is safe and reasonable to do. On the other hand, if you give them your real name a whole load of consent issues go away.

Re:Why not both?

[orgelspieler]

It's not as profitable to Google if they can't link an online identity to a fake/anonymous account.

I don't buy that argument. Let's say you have multiple "fake" accounts, one for each facet of your lifestyle. You will want to be sold stuff based on which facet you are currently presenting. If I'm surfing the web with my family looking for vacation sites, I don't want penis enhancement advertising to show up (awkward). If I'm trolling for pr0n, I don't want ads for Disney World to pop up (that's just weird). If I'm at work looking for training videos on Amazon, I don't want my Thomas the Train purchases for my son confusing the results (annoying). If anything, Google should market the capability to advertisers: "You can target our users based on their specific intentions at this instant, not just their accumulated preferences." They are really limiting themselves here.

Re:Why not both?

[Cutting_Crew]

yeah but I don't click, read or even acknowledge, consciously or unconsciously ads. so what good will it do them if they have 'valuable' data or not?

Re:Why not both?

[grcumb]

Why not allow both and let the userbase sort out who they do and do not add on their professional (cathedral) and personal (bazaar) accounts?

google won't let us filter out the comment spammers. They'd have to add a flag for each user as "real" or "anonymous coward" and then add a filter flag so we don't have to see the AC/spammers.

You can control who sees your posts in the circles. You cannot, more or less, control who spams your comments, for better or worse.

Circles are unidirectional, not bidirectional like other services.

A typical failure mode would be I add wiedzmin to my circles, and whenever you post, I spamflood your post comments, and there's nothing you can do about it at this time. Needless to say, I'm not going to behave like that using my real name, so you need not worry. Allowing an infinite collection of ACs in would only make it worse.

cooooool . i like this post :)))) i circle u if u too

The spamflood has already started. The biggest mistake Google is making is assuming that the owner of the account is the spammer (or conversely that the spammer actually cares about the fate of the account). That hasn't been true of email spam for years now, and it's not true of Google+ accounts.

Arguments about what constitutes a real name aside, Google has completely missed the boat where the nature of online identity is concerned. They may want a cathedral, but human society is far too bazaar (sorry) for that.

Laugh however much you like about Liberal Arts majors, but this is a classic case of mistakenly believing that an engineering solution exists for every problem.

More likely accounts would mostly be used for post spam than pure harassment. Browse /. and look at the score -5 to 0 posts for a good idea of what anonymous G+ would mostly look like.

No need. G+ is already looking like that.

Re:Why not both?

[grcumb]

Point remains... "real people" are muzzled on G+ if they permit ACs, because ACs will spamflood any public discussion.

No, the point doesn't follow at all.

We're talking about pseudonymity, not anonymity. They are not one and the same.

While you can point to countless examples of anti-social account abuse (e.g. sock-puppetry, trolling, etc.), exactly none of the fundamental issues are addressed by Google's 'real name' policy.

There is absolutely nothing about this rule that would stop a spammer or a troll from creating dozens, hundreds or even thousands of plausible-sounding accounts, then unleashing them on the user base. In fact, that's exactly what's happening right now.

Google has not properly thought out the issue of identity. That much is clear. And by indulging in a typical geek fallacy (that a few clear, simple rules will be enough to make human society behave), they've created another problem for themselves, without even beginning to address the first.

If Google wants to limit every person to one account, they can do so. (They'd be wrong on that count, too, but not as much.) But who the fuck are they to tell me what my name should or should not be?

Re:Why not both?

[Requiem18th]

As it has been mentioned a hundred times before, the common name policy doesn't hurt spammers AT ALL.

For a spammer it only means that he must come up with a common name for the account, so instead of GetBigNow selling you penis enlargements you have "Jossie Miller" selling you penis enlargements.

Whatever problems the common name policy is supposed to fix, spam, scams and any other type of user abuse are NOT any of them. My guess is that they want your real name so that they can make a permanent, universal profile on you.

Right now they might have a profile with your religion, political affiliation and porn tastes. But if you are like most computer users, you have multiple accounts, on multiple sites, you get on the Internet on multiple devices and share those devices with other people. Not only that but if you get sick of google you can use another service.

If they know your real name however they will be able to update your google profile with whatever they find about you online even ifr you leave google.

Re:Why not both?

[The Dawn Of Time]

The real issue here is that Slashdot is embracing its increasing irrelevance by posting non-stories like this.

Re:Why not both?

[jawahar]

Google is an advertising company.
They'll pick which ever enhances their ad revenue.

Re:Why not both?

[jseale]

Why not allow both and let the userbase sort out who they do and do not add on their professional (cathedral) and personal (bazaar) accounts? Because frankly, we already have a cathedral (LinkedIn) and a Bazaar (Facebook), so if Google wants to attract those users, they better be flexible enough to accommodate them.

Exactly! If Google thinks they can compete with Facebook and LinkedIn at the same time, they're nuts! They should focus on the Bazaar model and compete with Facebook like they originally intended to,

Cathedral

[halfaperson]

Not that I think the "Catherdral vs. Bazaar" comparison is really that appropriate as a tool for measuring social networks (and it wasn't intended for that either), but using Google+ will always be - no matter how you twist and turn it - on their rules and conditions. And this regardless of wheter anonymous accounts are allowed or not. The only way to have a truly "bazaar" social network model would be using decentralized nodes. I admit I don't know much about Diaspora, but wasn't that one of their selling points?

Re:Cathedral

[assertation]

Yep and after a lot of hype the project fizzled out. What do you want? Being a college student is the last time in your life when you can flake out without damage. Oh well. Great idea.

Re:More importantly

[bsharp8256]

Google+ is an analogy because there are no "likes."

Re:More importantly

[bsharp8256]

Oops, meant to put:

is not a simile because there are no "likes."

i usually dump all the anonymous into a circle

[alen]

where they don't have access to most of my information. if you don't want to use your real name then i usually don't want to have anything to do with you on a social network

Re:i usually dump all the anonymous into a circle

[tftp]

if you don't want to use your real name then i usually don't want to have anything to do with you on a social network

Of course. That's why you are using your full real name on Slashdot (which is a sort of a social network.) I wouldn't want to reply to you because of merits of your opinion - no, I'd reply only because I personally know you.

Re:i usually dump all the anonymous into a circle

[LordLucless]

That's why you are using your full real name on Slashdot (which is a sort of a social network.)

Then again, it sort of isn't, too. Slashdot is a guided discussion forum; it's generally about technology/geek issues, we get a certain number of stories on particular topics, and discuss it amongst ourselves. It's predicated on the fact that we all have a common interest.

"Social Networks" are predicated on the fact that the participants in a given sub-network (ie: not the whole site itself, but all those individuals connected to a particular node) are interested in each other already. Yes, there are things like Facebook's "Fan" pages, where you can have discussions among like-minded people, but they're on the periphery. The primary focus of a social network is to replicate the existing meat-space social connections in cyber-space. That's why it's a "social" network, and not just a network.

Given that, it's easy to see why real names are preferred on a social network; it makes it easier for you to connect with people you know, and you're expected to only really share stuff with people who already know your name anyway.

Loosen the definitions enough, and sure, you could call Slashdot a "social network". But then the term would lose all meaning - it would be equally valid to say any online forum, or IRC chat, or online game is a "social network".

Re:i usually dump all the anonymous into a circle

[vux984]

where they don't have access to most of my information. if you don't want to use your real name then i usually don't want to have anything to do with you on a social network

Consider, for example, a World Of Warcraft player with in game friends, a guild, maybe a few RL friends who play as well... a place to post pics, talk about ones exploits, plan events and stuff... socialize... and if they play different games using the same handle, and often with the same people... whether its Halo3 or Call of Duty or Travian...

Social networks have all kinds of valid uses for people who wish to remain pseudonymous. I don't use my real name in online games and have zero interest in changing that. I have people in real life who I don't want to know who I am, and I have those I do. The one's I do I tell. The one's I don't, I don't.

For MANY people, going online is an escape from your real identity. An intelligent mature overweight pimply faced 14 year old can be taken seriously in an argument about design patterns in C#. The "hot blond 19 year old" can be in a game as a troll warrior judged on her skill and gear... not her figure. A 46 year old senior manager for Intel can engage in a political or religious debate without exposing the company to criticism and liability... or creating conflict with his superiors for being of a different political or religious position from them.

There is value in these sorts of people in these sorts of situations to socialize within the context of the pseudoname.

Re:i usually dump all the anonymous into a circle

[stephanruby]

A better metaphor would be the Bazaar and the Street Mardis Gras/Carnival in New Orleans, the Bazaar being Google+, and facebook being the Carnaval with its own virtual bid currency where everybody pokes you.

In a Bazaar, you can actually do business with people and have normal relationships with them, because you can actually see their faces, and so their identities are somewhat tied to the physical realm.

But if people are wearing masks, then some identities are only tied to the mask, and two polar extremes can emerge from that. On one side, you get the corporate identity which remains always bland, dull, fake, and very often not helpful at all. Take a look at any Corporate blog/facebook page to see what I'm talking about. And on the other side, you get anonymous personas that get to pretend they're anything they can think up, the latest examples being that they're young, pretty, and lesbian, when in fact they're none of those things, not even females in the first place.

Re:i usually dump all the anonymous into a circle

[stephanruby]

Ooops, I should have written "bead currency", not "bid currency".

Re:i usually dump all the anonymous into a circle

[tftp]

Given that, it's easy to see why real names are preferred on a social network; it makes it easier for you to connect with people you know, and you're expected to only really share stuff with people who already know your name anyway.

I fail to see that. For example, I want to contact a guy called Robert Miller. I actually know him in person. However there are thousands of them on the Internet, and probably a hundred in the heavily populated area where we both live. His name is worthless to me as a location tool. If you want to locate a specific person in the USA you'd better use his SSN, and even that is not a guarantee of anything. If you want to locate a specific person in the world ... you can't do that.

The only reliable way for me to contact this guy on Internet is to call him (or meet him) and ask "what is your unique ID on the Internet / social network / blog?" - and then he says "Oh, yes, it's bmiller_0x8832E017" ... Well, if I go through this exchange I don't need to know his real name as it is registered in the social network - I already know it.

Only the provider of the social network benefits from knowing the real name (and address, etc.) of a participant. Other members of the social network fall into two large groups:

1. Members who already know who bmiller_0x8832E017 is. They don't need a reminder.
2. Members who don't know Robert Miller in person. Perhaps he lives in a different country. Then they don't care what his real name is.

There is no third group among the members of the social network that would need to know that an account bmiller_0x8832E017 is really associated with Robert A. Miller, Ph.D., Esq., M.D. living at 123 Main St., Paradise, AZ, USA. What would be the value of this information, especially when obtained in out of band way (not by asking?) Stalking is the most likely answer, or physical threats after some heated cyberspace discussion. Do I want any of that? NFW.

Aside from that reasoning, we already have examples of social networks (Twitter) where the number of followers of certain authors is huge. That may be temporary if the author is at the center of some event, or permanent if the author is a public figure. It wouldn't be reasonable to expect that the author "personally knows" all the followers. Do you think Obama personally knows 9.4 million people who follow him? If so, he has an excellent memory (and doesn't need a teleprompter :-)

Re:i usually dump all the anonymous into a circle

[LordLucless]

If you want to locate a specific person in the USA you'd better use his SSN, and even that is not a guarantee of anything. If you want to locate a specific person in the world ... you can't do that.

Funny, because millions seem to do it all the time on Facebook. Search results are ordered by "connectedness", so if you and Rob have any friends in common, he's going to float to the top of your list. Not only that, but profile pictures (generally) accompany the search - it's pretty easy to spot the real Rob. I doubt you'd get hundreds of Rob Millers. The most common name on Facebook is "John Smith"*, and it's so disproportionately large (five times the next most common) that most of the are probably fraudulent. Dropping down to the next most common nets a total of 14,000 or so worldwide - you're local city is unlikely to have hundreds of Rob Millers unless its quite a large statistical anomaly.

Only the provider of the social network benefits from knowing the real name (and address, etc.) of a participant.

No, they don't - as you say, it's too vague for someone like Google to use it as a database key, and they have other, better ways of doing that anyway (you're single sign-on Google account, for instance). It's also not particularly sellable - neither is your address, really, just the general locality - I've never heard of an advertiser wanting to target only people with a surname of Rodriguez, or who live in 89th street; city or zip code is as much as they really care about.

There is no third group among the members of the social network that would need to know that an account bmiller_0x8832E017 is really associated with Robert A. Miller, Ph.D., Esq., M.D. living at 123 Main St., Paradise, AZ, USA.

Sure there is. There's friends of Rob who don't have his most recent postal address, but want to send him a Christmas card, or wedding invitation. There's people who don't know which email address he changed to after he switched ISPs the last time, but want to get in touch.

Stalking is the most likely answer, or physical threats after some heated cyberspace discussion.

I guess if you're paranoid it is. Remember, the premise is that we're adding people we already know socially. I guess it could help the absent-minded stalker, who keeps forgetting if it's number 17 or number 19's windows he should be peeking in.

Aside from that reasoning, we already have examples of social networks (Twitter) where the number of followers of certain authors is huge. That may be temporary if the author is at the center of some event, or permanent if the author is a public figure. It wouldn't be reasonable to expect that the author "personally knows" all the followers

Do you think Obama personally knows 9.4 million [twitter.com] people who follow him?

No. But then I doubt Obama has added 9.4 million as friends on Facebook, or to his "best buds" circle on Google+. "Following" (unlike "Friending" on Facebook) doesn't require any confirmation by the person being followed, and consequently doesn't grant access to any extra information.

None of that really matters. If you want to interact with other pseudonymous users, there are thousands, probably millions of places on the internet where you can do just that. It's been the default mode of operation on the internet since shortly after it's conception. Having one venue that doesn't allow anonymity doesn't suddenly spell the death of anonymity on the internet. If you want to preserve anonymity, use slashdot, or IRC, or a discussion board, or any of a million other places; if you'd rather not experience the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory first-hand, then use Google+ or Facebook.

our particular absence won't be missed, apart from maybe by a few of your friends, who now find it harder to connect with you. But then, that's no different from in reality:

Re:i usually dump all the anonymous into a circle

[bingoUV]

I've never heard of an advertiser wanting to target only people with a surname of Rodriguez, or who live in 89th street; city or zip code is as much as they really care about.

You have not heard much, then, have you?

Rodriguez : Spanish clubs / restaurants / community centres would pay much more to advertize to a Rodriguez than to a Churchill.

89th street / zip code : Starbucks franchisee of that area? A new gym in that area?

Re:i usually dump all the anonymous into a circle

[LordLucless]

If you're looking to target ethnicity, surname is a lousy way of doing it. I've got McDonald friends who've never heard the bagpipes, and Russos who've never cooked lasagne. Much easier in that case to target people who've joined Spanish groups, who list Spanish as a language they speak, or identify themselves as Spanish - all of which is also generally a part of profiles on sites like Facebook.

Zip code? Read my comment - I said that zip code is useful for advertising. But street? Not so much. Even if a new restaurant or whatever is to launch in a given street, targeting just that street for advertising is usually too narrow. But zip code isn't much use for all those people the OP fears - door-knocking a zipcode trying to track down the target is likely to lead to very tired and frustrated would-be stalker.

Re:i usually dump all the anonymous into a circle

[bingoUV]

I've got McDonald friends who've never heard the bagpipes, and Russos who've never cooked lasagne

Then learn about large scale data mining. Hint - exceptions are far from fatal.

Much easier in that case to target people who've joined Spanish groups, who list Spanish as a language they speak, or identify themselves as Spanish

It works both ways. Why have they joined Spanish groups? Because the networking sites suggested Spanish groups to them based on a lot of data - including surname. You dismiss surname completely as a way to estimate ethnicity probability - I say that it is wrong to dismiss.

Zip code? Read my comment - I said that zip code is useful for advertising. ..... door-knocking a zipcode trying to track down the target is likely to lead to very tired and frustrated would-be stalker.

I replied to the specific part I quoted - that you never heard of an advertizer "wanting to target only people with a surname of Rodriguez, or who live in 89th street; city or zip code is as much as they really care about.". So I am not really replying to the stalker argument, only your ignorance about advertizer behaviour.

Zip code helps, but very frequently a place is close to 3 different zip codes which are not even adjacent numerically, but the place is on 89th street. Proprietors owning such place would rather buy an adword for "city + locality + 89th street" rather than the zip code. Yes, zip code adwords are more expensive and in general more valuable, but in specific cases, street number adwords can be better.

In large scale data mining, every bit helps - you combine all information that you can get and come up with a correlation coefficient. Street, surname might not be perfect but it is highly ignorant to suggest they are worthless data points.

Re:i usually dump all the anonymous into a circle

[tftp]

On top of all that, a letter has much better chances of being open of it is personally addressed to Miguel Rodriguez than to "Postal Customer."

I understand that some of that information is in phone books. But some people pay to opt out of those books. Also only the account holder is listed there - not his family members. The account holder is likely to be the most financially responsible person there, head of the household, and it's tough to sell to him. His teenage children, OTOH, would be a great target for all kinds of ads ... but if their names are not known, the head of the household opens the mail and throws it away. Letters addressed personally to Anita Rodriguez will be delivered unopened, even if that's an obvious mail spam.

I'm Confused on the Article's "Cathedral"

[eldavojohn]

It's been a while since I've perused CatB but from the article:

The Bazaar was likened to the slightly chaotic but powerful collective approach behind the development of open source software.

The Cathedral represented the traditional, closed, corporate approach to software development.

Um, I'm a little confused on their definition of the Cathedral. From Wikipedia (and also from my memory):

* The Cathedral model, in which source code is available with each software release, but code developed between releases is restricted to an exclusive group of software developers. GNU Emacs and GCC are presented as examples.
* The Bazaar model, in which the code is developed over the Internet in view of the public. Raymond credits Linus Torvalds, leader of the Linux kernel project, as the inventor of this process. Raymond also provides anecdotal accounts of his own implementation of this model for the Fetchmail project.

GNU Emacs and GCC were the "traditional, closed, corporate approach to software development"? That's news to me!

I don't follow nor agree with this adaptation of CatB to social networks ... nor do I think the author of this article fully read CatB.

Re:I'm Confused on the Article's "Cathedral"

[T.E.D.]

GNU Emacs and GCC were the "traditional, closed, corporate approach to software development"? That's news to me!

There are a couple of things you need to realise here.

The first is ESR had(has?) issues with Stallman, and always hated his style. Stallman has a rather Socialist outlook on life, and ESR is a committed Libertarian. So one of ESR's missions in life (at least back then) was to marginalize Stallman. These projects were, in ESR's view, tainted by Stallmanisim, so he's going out of his way to denigrate them. This is also why he helped invent the term "OpenSource". A prime goal of CatB was to establish a foundation for the movement that Libertarians (like ESR himself) could get behind, rather than the Socialist-sounding GNU Manifesto.

The second is that there was actuall a grain of truth in those complaints at the time. When that essay was written, there was an active fork going on of GCC, due in part to the intransigence of the maintainers. Emacs had more forks than it would be easy to count (most notably XEmacs), for similar reasons. Both of these situations are much better today, so these complains may seem an anachronisim.

Re:I'm Confused on the Article's "Cathedral"

[vlm]

Its bizarrely backwards. Talk about getting it backwards.

The Cathedral was built by anonymous toilers. No one really knows, or frankly cares, who carved and placed that individual block in that unnoticed wall centuries ago. This is an anonymous social network.

The Bazzar is staffed by human beings. Not interchangeable human cogs like a starbucks, but real individuals. Farmer Albert trades corn for Blacksmith Bob's farmtools. The important part is a Bazzar is based on real names with real reputations and a 1:1 match between them. This is the G+ social network model where, for better or worse, your real name attaches to your online reputation. Almost all of the time its better; some of the time, for some people, it could be worse. Oh well.

Re:I'm Confused on the Article's "Cathedral"

[emurphy42]

News to me too, but according to that same article, they were more in that direction (but moved in the bazaar direction in response to CatB). Closed-source, meanwhile, is the obvious next step from "source is unavailable except when the cabal releases" to "source is unavailable, full stop"; the original definition of "cathedral" does represent that, if only by presenting a weaker form of it.

Re:I'm Confused on the Article's "Cathedral"

[blair1q]

I think the mistake is thinking that playing around in G+ is anything like software development.

Google is developing Google+. The people in it are just in it.

So it's like the Mall. Only without the shitty food.

Re:I'm Confused on the Article's "Cathedral"

[fritish]

Good point. I think that the simile was going for a cathedral = "ordered groupings with strict rules" and bazzar = "mess of people with informal rules".

"if Google wants to attract those users"

[earls]

Key assumption.

Re:"if Google wants to attract those users"

[SIR_Taco]

Exactly, my understanding was they do not want those users... whether it's for nefarious reasons or just to keep it from becoming another MySpace gong-show, the jury is still out on that.

Re:"if Google wants to attract those users"

[gstoddart]

Except they've allowed people to have Gmail accounts for years which have pseudonyms ... now if they're going to retroactively take those accounts and make them users of Google+ (and thereby say you're violating the TOS) that's going to be a problem for a lot of existing accounts.

I'm not using Google+ (and I have no desire to), but I don't want to be told that my email account I've had for several years has to be closed because it doesn't correspond to my name (I don't know if they're mucking about with existing gmail accounts or not).

Cancelled my Face Book account

[Wingfat]

I canceled my FB account.. never had a My Space one.. and I will never ever have a Google+ one.. i barely use my google email as well.. might cancel that soon too.. I am so tried of these corps using my data for their own ends and not giving me anything in return. Also I have family members that cant read FB becuase they are blind or almost blind. In the last two updates they did, the almost blind person can now read much much less on the main FB page and is so frustrated with it, they are ready to toss the PC out the window. Mark Z you listening?? contact me I have a million ideas to update and fix FB for people that currently cant use it. (also have a few awesome ideas to make FB better with Pictures)

Re:Cancelled my Face Book account

[TehNoobTrumpet]

They DO give you something in return. Remember the days when you had to PAY for e-mail? Quickly finding and contacting someone you know has never been this easy.
That being said, I understand that you may not find these services useful, but to say that they give nothing in return isn't true.

Re:Cancelled my Face Book account

[The O Rly Factor]

He doesn't care, they're a drop in the bucket. Remember: Facebook users are products, not customers.

Re:Cancelled my Face Book account

[Wingfat]

PAY FOR EMAIL? never did that.. I remeber when HotMail tried to make me do that (i think that was 1996 or so).. I called them up and said no way would I ever pay for email. And I havent. so back in 96' I switched to Excite.com email and have had the same account since then (yep the same email for 15years gets a lot of spam hehehe). I have a sonic.net account that i get for free back from when i worked for them. and works great with Outlook or Louts Notes. Either way.. I am sick of hearing FaceBook this and FB that.. grrr. I am so glad I was able to cancel my account. grabbed the email address of friends I want to stay in touch with and the rest if they want to contact me then, call me! hehehe.

Re:Cancelled my Face Book account

[Wingfat]

since Fire Fox says they are not in the Dictionary

Re:Cancelled my Face Book account

[rufty_tufty]

You also can't use price comparison websites,(they sell your information as part of their service) Most large company's websites (amazon, screwfix, M&S, Tesco - sorry for the UK slant there). Basically anything you do at all on the web gives away your privacy.
Also you can't go outside because people will take photos of you and with face recognition software soon to be available (10-20 years is soon right if all content stays online forever).

Face it, technology has meant the end of privacy as we have expected it in the past. Kind of like it has meant the end of the copyright/distribution as RIAA has known it. How we deal with this is the next question, but hiding under a rock is a very luddite reaction.
I'm not saying we should all give out credit card details out to anyone, and post photos of what i got up to with the wife last night on LinkedIn, but the world has changed and hiding from it won't help.

Re:Cancelled my Face Book account

[wjousts]

And why do you think Hotmail, Excite or Sonic give you "free" e-mail? I'll give you a clue, it has something to do with using your data for their own ends, just like Google and Facebook.

Some may be better or worse than others, but you are living in a fantasy world if you think anybody is giving you e-mail for free. Either you pay for it with real cash, or they use your data to serve up ads.

Re:Cancelled my Face Book account

[Synerg1y]

Seriously what's the big deal with getting targeted advertising or your browsing habits being part of a 8 figure calculation of web trends. I really don't care if google wants to try and sell me a vacuum after i spent a week shopping for one online, I don't think I even notice the ads. On the note add-ons to every major browser will block 99% of ads on the internet. Things like noscript and grease monkey take it to a whole new level to where it may even become a lot harder to track you.

On the other hand, if your going to illegal/controversial websites, non of this applies to you cause your using a proxy (at least) right? :)

Re:Cancelled my Face Book account

[vlm]

I canceled my FB account ... not giving me anything in return

Same here. I used FB hard core, seriously gave it a try, for six months. I was promised I'd get a job, make friends, date hot chicks (boy would my wife be pissed). None of the above happened. I already had a nice job and didn't find a better one. The heavy users are all boring plastic people not real people, think about it, they're writing about it, not doing it. As for the chicks, I was better off with memories of how they looked in HS and college than how they actually look now; holy cow and I thought I have "aged" a lot. I chucked it.

I will never ever have a Google+

Cheater! I've got 5 months to go before I decide to keep or delete.

So far, if I hadn't had G+, I'd... um... Well Trey the pro photographer published some pretty pictures, but he posted so freaking many I had to unfollow him. And Lee Allison holds cooking classes in hangout that I can never attend. And this Sean Bonner guy is hilarious. And about 10% of Wil Wheaton's posts are awesome. Judas Xavier's religious views (or lack there of) match mine more or less perfectly, and he has some kind of media hotline to find cool stories and pix. A ton of Debian Developers are on G+ and they never talk "business" so its all fairly useless to my interests (I admin about four dozen Debian boxes for both pay and pleasure). Rob Malda makes few, high quality posts, but I'm not giving up /. for G+ anytime soon. None of my coworkers (despite this being a tech hotbed) and none of my family have G+ accounts so its purely social and followers for me; the circles functionality is useless for me. That's about it for the first month or so. I got in pretty early. It certainly has picked up over the past weeks?

Has it been worth the cost in time and loss of privacy? Err, well, "shrugs shoulders". I'm gonna be fair and give it another 5 months.

Re:Cancelled my Face Book account

[Wingfat]

not sonic.. but I agree about excite and google. not much spam in the google, but I think that is because i don't use Google to email in general. I also dont use google to Search.. i'll stick with Microsoft. at least I know they are doing something.. and i trust Bill Gates more than anyone nowadays. So now, if use the local library's wifi (or Star Bucks, but dont step a foot inside of either place) to surf the net, that is free. I then link up to me FREE sonic email using what ever i feel like that day.. Run a subnet mask and then Spoof a MAC address, use a TOR browser out of Canada and surf that way, i get no targeted ads at me and got it for free.

Re:Cancelled my Face Book account

[Wingfat]

nice! and i like your tag line ;-)

Re:Cancelled my Face Book account

[Wingfat]

EXACTLY.. proxy / TOR Browser (not on my home network though) I have never noticed a Google targeted ad till this year. I bought tickets for a concert, then went to a web site a few days like that is used to Color Blind people and noticed that the ad on the top of the page Finally changed from an ad about Contacts to an ad for an upcoming concert the band i bought tickets for was playing. That actually excited me and I thought it was cool... then thought deeper about it and thought hey... would I want a targeted ad to show up on my computer for something i was searching on that i didn't want a family member to see? lol

Re:Cancelled my Face Book account

[Dthief]

Bill Gates doesn't run MS anymore......and the lack of spam in google is because their spam filter is quite solid......

Re:Cancelled my Face Book account

[Wingfat]

Maybe try a search before posting.. i know i dont some times.. but for this answer you gave.. here is my response: He is the chairman of the board of directors now... owns at least owns more then 8% of the stock offerings.. has controlling stake in 67% of the company.. sounds like he isn't the CEO, but he is the end all be all of MS.

Wrong analogy

[whiteboy86]

Medieval analogies? Look into the sci-fi future, see, it is more like ad Matrix..

Re:Wrong analogy

[blair1q]

I didn't see a single ad in The Matrix.

That's how I know it's not real.

No anonymity

[TehNoobTrumpet]

Of course they wouldn't want the possibility of anonymity. That makes their information collection services that much less useful for targeted advertising.

Re:No anonymity

[Lord Grey]

Google can -- and probably should -- know who each user is. Targeted advertising can still be preserved. What Google needs to do is allow a user to represent herself anonymously to the rest of the Google+ user base.

Re:No anonymity

[bberens]

For the millionth time, Google doesn't care if you use a pseudonym as long as your pseudonym passes the whiff test as a legit name. So xyzzy is out but you could use any made up name you want. They specifically state it does not need to be your real name.

Re:No anonymity

[drewzhrodague]

They specifically state it does not need to be your real name.

Except that I am blocked because my name, Drew from Zhrodague, does not fit their Terms of Service. Google+ has my profile blocked:

Hi, Thank you for contacting us with regard to our review of the name you are trying to use in your Google Profile. After review of your appeal, we have determined that the name you want to use violates our Community Standards. You can review our name guidelines at http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/answer.py?answer=1228271 If you edit your name to comply with our policies in the future, please respond to this email so that we can re-review your profile. Sincerely, Duyen The Google Profiles Support Team

Re:No anonymity

[NeutronCowboy]

In other words, there needs to be the option to have your nickname default to be the visible "name" of your account. Problem solved. I have no idea why Google isn't going that route.

Both. A church bakesale.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Google's attempting to not necessarily take down Facebook or twitter, I don't think anyway. It'd be insane. Facebook had some advantages that Google+ does not, namely, no matter how bad the Facebook UI will get, it will NEVER be as horrible as the best days on MySpace, which is the social media giant it uprooted. Now I'm speaking strictly in terms of UI, in terms of privacy and other issues, Facebook has a long way to go, but Google+ isn't looking to chase FB on those fronts(except for the exclusion of apps; which I think is a benefit for G+).

Instead what I think they're trying to do is coexist and yet dictate some terms, but not try to be this domineering force in the social media market. Hence, a church bakesale. Come see what we've got, it's tasty, if you don't like it, no big deal.

Ask ESR

[Jodka]

Well since Eric Raymond, who wrote the book, is using Google+ and is blogging about it (entries here, here, here and here), maybe someone should ask him.

   

Re:Ask ESR

[vlm]

Well since Eric Raymond, who wrote the book, is using Google+ and is blogging about it (entries here, here, here and here), maybe someone should ask him.

 

You'll get about 100 more points if you ask him on G+

https://plus.google.com/108967323530519754654/posts

One of his recent blog / G+ posts is kinda relevant to this discussion:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3514

Re:Ask ESR

[Hatta]

Yeah, but then you'd actually have to talk to Eric Raymond.

Your data

[bonch]

Google wants your data. They are a gigantic advertising company. There's no way they'd let you use anonymous pseudonyms. It's not about order and control; it's about getting more personal information on you that they can sell to advertisers. For many users, Facebook is becoming the web. They don't use Gmail; they message through Facebook. They don't visit YouTube; they watch videos posted to Facebook. That's dangerous to an online advertising company dependent on page views , and so Google+ is their attempt to reclaim users and root them back onto their platform.

Anonymity was once one of the fundamental tenets of the internet, something considered so core to it that it was almost treated as part of the definition. That has been whittled away over time, to the point where people have become used to revealing almost everything about themselves, and now the internet is no longer treated as a means of free expression, escape, and privacy.

These values used to be something Slashdot cared about, but as Google rose in power, Slashdot's values changed. All you have to do as a company is announce that you use Linux and that you use open source, and geek communities will avoid questioning you about your privacy violations, your exploitation of buzzwords like "openness," or your motives for data collection. In fact, those communities will rise to your defense, even in the face of antitrust probes. You can even "accidentally" archive neighborhood wifi data for four years without repercussion.

Google isn't the benevolent little search engine company with the minimalist website. That disappeared many years ago and was replaced with another hypocritical corporation guilty of multiple broken promises, from heir removal of H.264 support from Chrome in the name of openness in spite of their inclusion of Flash, MP3, and AAC playback to their refusal to provide the source to Android Honeycomb to their lukewarm adoption of standardized advertising opt-out technology in Chrome (advertising is their business, after all).

Hopefully, Google+ fades away like Buzz and Wave before it.

Re:Your data

[Daetrin]

If all Google cares about is collecting and marketing my data, why the hell should they care if i use a pseudonym or not as long as they know who i am?

In fact allowing pseudonyms and multiple accounts would only help Google in that regard. If i've got three active accounts, UserA, UserB and UserC, then Google can sell ads to me three different times, and to the company paying for the ads it will look like Google put marketing material in front of three different sets of eyes. So that's good for me (in terms of letting me use pseudonyms) good for Google (in terms of selling ads) and actually pretty neutral for the company buying the advertising (realistically, they'd probably rather have the ad shown to three different people, but gods know they never had and problem with showing the same ad to the same person over and over and over again and hoping it will stick that way.)

Re:Your data

[wjousts]

If all Google cares about is collecting and marketing my data, why the hell should they care if i use a pseudonym or not as long as they know who i am?

They probably don't care, per se, but their customers do. Their customers don't get all their marketing data exclusively from Google (although Google would probably like that). They want to be able to link the data from Google to data from other sources and a real name is one of the better keys (but by no means sufficient by itself) for making that connection.

In fact allowing pseudonyms and multiple accounts would only help Google in that regard. If i've got three active accounts, UserA, UserB and UserC, then Google can sell ads to me three different times, and to the company paying for the ads it will look like Google put marketing material in front of three different sets of eyes. So that's good for me (in terms of letting me use pseudonyms) good for Google (in terms of selling ads) and actually pretty neutral for the company buying the advertising (realistically, they'd probably rather have the ad shown to three different people, but gods know they never had and problem with showing the same ad to the same person over and over and over again and hoping it will stick that way.)

No, it's pretty bad for the customer. They've paid three times for an ad to the same person. If you can't see why Google's customers would be unhappy about that then you don't understand business. This alone might be a good argument (from the customers POV) for insisting Google gets their user's real names, or at least, some unique identifier.

Re:Your data

[bberens]

There's no way they'd let you use anonymous pseudonyms.

Google doesn't care if you use a pseudonym as long as your pseudonym could possibly be a legitimate name. John Doe is perfectly acceptable.

Re:Your data

[vlm]

If all Google cares about is collecting and marketing my data, why the hell should they care if i use a pseudonym or not as long as they know who i am?

Trolling and spamming repels many users, look at the dead comments section at my local newspaper, nothing from comment spammers trying to sell pills to paid political astroturfers, that given a choice of repelling ACs or repelling real users, they made the business decision that they make more dough repelling the ACs.

A charity not interested in profit is welcome to make the opposite decision.

Re:Your data

[Daetrin]

They probably don't care, per se, but their customers do. Their customers don't get all their marketing data exclusively from Google (although Google would probably like that). They want to be able to link the data from Google to data from other sources and a real name is one of the better keys (but by no means sufficient by itself) for making that connection.

The last i heard, Google doesn't sell our (specific) data to other companies, that's what Facebook does. Google is in the business of selling ads, so they want to keep our data to themselves. Do you have any evidence to suggest that Google is in fact selling our names to their customers?

No, it's pretty bad for the customer. They've paid three times for an ad to the same person. If you can't see why Google's customers would be unhappy about that then you don't understand business. This alone might be a good argument (from the customers POV) for insisting Google gets their user's real names, or at least, some unique identifier.

Have you been on the internet lately? Or rather, have you been on the internet without adblock recently? If you do, you will see the same ads over and over and over and over again. You can watch a video on some service (not just YouTube, though YouTube is certainly one of the biggest culprits) and have to watch an ad beforehand. And if you then refresh the page (or even just hit the "replay" button sometimes) as often as not you'll have to watch the exact same ad again. If there's any kind of pressure from the companies paying for the ads to not have the same ad shown to the same person twice (or three times, or a dozen times) it's certainly not having any apparent effect, even when the people selling the ad space know damn well it's the same person sitting there.

The same thing will happen on tv. You will often see the same commercial more than once during the same program, despite the fact that it's pretty certain the same people are watching both ads. You'll certainly see it more than once during the same block of programming, despite the fact that a large percentage of the same people are watching the same ad.

There's perfectly valid research showing that repeated viewings of an ad makes it "stick" better. Companies would certainly rather have more people see their ads, but to a certain extent they're also happy to have the same number of people see the ad more times.

Re:Your data

[Daetrin]

Dear gods, how many times does this have to get brought up?

As far as spammers and trolls are concerned Pseudonyms are practically the same as real names. Unless Google is going to require everyone to submit a government issued ID before allowing them to create an account (and i'm sure that would go over _really_ well) then spammers and trolls can create "John Smith" accounts just as easily as "ImaTroll37" accounts.

And let's repeat it once more since people like you KEEP making this argument and KEEP making the same mistake.

Pseudonymous accounts ARE NOT THE SAME AS anonymous accounts!!!! With pseudonymous accounts you still have a "permanent" account which can be moderated or banned and for which, realistically speaking, Google has just as good idea about who you are as if you had a "real name" account.

Honestly, the supposed confusion seems so persistent by this point that i have to wonder if some of you are shills hired by Google as part of a FUD campaign.

Re:Your data

[blair1q]

Facebook wants your data. They are a gigantic advertising company. There's no way they'd let you use anonymous pseudonyms.

See how dumb that sounds with such a small change?

Google doesn't actually need to identify you to sell your eyeballs to advertisers. They can track your characteristics and target your demographic just fine without ever getting to know you.

Its reasons for wanting you to identify yourself have more to do with making you behave like you do IRL when you're in their server. It's a cost and liability reduction strategy.

Re:Your data

[wjousts]

The same thing will happen on tv.

TV ads aren't web ads. TV ads don't pay for click-throughs. TV ads are limit to ~30 seconds, a banner ad on a website is [usually] there the entire time you're on the site.

Re:Your data

[Daetrin]

Uh, so what? You seem to be missing the point. The company paying for the ad still pays for every showing, and they're paying for multiple showings during the same show even though they know it's mostly the same people who will see the ad both time.

Companies clearly think showing you the same ad multiple times is a good thing, which makes sense since there's scientific research to back that position up. That means that they're not going to be horribly put out if you get shown the same web ad multiple times when logging in through multiple accounts.

Re:Your data

[wjousts]

No, you are missing the point. Again, web ads aren't TV ads. Google sells click-throughs, TV ads don't. Advertisers want to know that those click-throughs are unique.

Re:Your data

[Daetrin]

First, Google doesn't only sell click-throughs, they also do cost per view ads.

Second, your argument makes even less sense when talking about cost per click ads. Putting aside the case of people who are intentionally trying to break the system (because those people will always find a way around whatever security you try to implement) who clicks on the same ad more than once? And of those, who clicks on an ad, then logs into a different account and clicks on the same ad again? Certainly the odds of that happening aren't any greater than the numerous other scenarios where they same person could click on the same ad and yet get counted as a different entity. (Logged in vs logged out, at home vs at work, using own computer vs using a friend's/SO's computer, etc.)

Since they only pay when you click, and that usually only happens once, it is entirely to the benefit of the company to put those ads in front of your eyeballs as often as possible. I'm pretty sure the number of people who would click on the same ad all three times when logging into three different accounts would be orders of magnitude lower than the people who would ignore the ad at first but end up clicking on it the second or third time. It's a clear net win for the companies buying the advertisements.

Choice is good

[gregfortune]

This is a social media environment that I might actually join and one I may let my children join. Linkedin is the only other "social media" account I have and I will never have a Facebook account and shunned MySpace when it was introduced. For me, the lack of any social decency that stems from anonymity is simply not worth it. If I'm going to build relationships with people (isn't that the point of social media?), I'd like to have reputation as collateral for bad behavior.

Perhaps we will return to a point where people think before they speak/post and self censor out of respect for their fellow man. For my tastes, the streets of the Bazaar are pretty filthy but to each his own.

Re:Choice is good

[ThisIsSaei]

Very well said; We've all been witness to anonymous fora; behold 4chan. A de facto art of a strong social network is security and privacy, and the first step towards any semblance of either is to address identity. I'm not saying that I agree with Google's actions of enforcement, but the rule of naming structure is a valid concept. Claiming that it's purely for marketing is sensationalist and petty.

Re:Choice is good

[BP9]

I don't really care if an online identity is provably linkable to a physical identity, just that its secure and when (for example) 'LadyBigMac' posts its trustable that its the same entity that posted with that identity (per service obviously) in the past. Having additional identity tie ins to help prevent identity theft seems good but shouldn't be required. You'll never know if something someone posted was posted under duress or not anyway, its as useful as security by obscurity when it comes to determining someone's motive/reasoning behind a given communication.

Re:Choice is good

[gregfortune]

The problem I have with this is that establishing a clean "reputation" is as easy as creating a new identity. In effect, I can only record trust but I cannot reliably track distrust. I'm glad that we do have anonymous environments and mechanisms for those that are oppressed to speak freely, but I would also like to have an environment where reputation actually matters. The ability to choose between the two is ideal.

Re:Choice is good

[Requiem18th]

We have these two users gregfortune and Alice Smith. Alice is always trying to sell me viagra and getting me into pyramid scams but she uses a common name so I must listen to her. gregfortune? I don't know, I have never read anything written by him but he doesn't use his real name so he must be a terrorist pirate child pornographer communist.

Re:Choice is good

[dgriff]

Linkedin is the only other "social media" account I have and I will never have a Facebook account and shunned MySpace when it was introduced. For me, the lack of any social decency that stems from anonymity is simply not worth it.

Unless you have some very strange friends you should give Facebook a try. Everyone I know (and as far as I can tell everyone that they know) uses their own real name.

It's a cathedral, so moving on...

[91degrees]

What would be the technical issue of setting up a more flexible social network? Multiple social networks which supply feeds to each other. Shouldn't be too hard from a technical PoV. Marketing seems to be the big blockage.

Re:It's a cathedral, so moving on...

[DragonWriter]

What would be the technical issue of setting up a more flexible social network? Multiple social networks which supply feeds to each other. Shouldn't be too hard from a technical PoV.

Trivial from a technical PoV; communications protocols like PubSubHubbub, and XMPP, and social graph data representations like FOAF and XFN, and authentication protocols like OpenID already support just about all of of what you need to replicate the functions common in modern social networking sites in an open, easily federated network.

Marketing seems to be the big blockage.

Getting the people who have a theoretical interest in such a thing to actually go beyond the technical underpinnings which would allow it to be built and to actually build something on those underpinnings that would be useful to users (individual or institutional) seems to be the biggest problem, not marketing the solutions once they are built.

Let's get the Godwin over and done with

[Hognoxious]

It's a koncentration kamp.

Re:Let's get the Godwin over and done with

[Noughmad]

This is Google, not KDE, you insensitive glod!

Re:Let's get the Godwin over and done with

[Abreu]

Goncentration Gamp?

Re:Let's get the Godwin over and done with

[iamhassi]

oh come on, that's funny! Mod him up!

Re:Let's get the Godwin over and done with

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Goncentration Gamp?

Now with Zyclon B(eta).

No Value

[DeionXxX]

Pseudonyms and Anonymous users provide absolute no value to Google. Google isn't a charity, it provides services because of the data it gathers about users for targeted advertising.

Facebook / Twitter / etc also rely on advertising and user information but they don't care about fake information because these fake accounts make their site look good to investors. Google on the other hand actually cares about REAL data, they don't want their algorithms to be soiled with fake data.

anti-competitive practices

[StripedCow]

Google should just convince the government (FTC) that Facebook has its users locked-in.

An analogy: society doesn't accept it when a telephone company prohibits or hinders its users from switching providers, so why not impose the same rules on social networks?

By the way, we also don't allow that telephone companies spy on their users (record conversations, etc.), but that's a different story.

Re:anti-competitive practices

[blair1q]

What is FB doing to prevent switching?

It's not. Anyone on FB is free to use G+, and FB can't do anything about that.

But I don't think it's against any law for FB to ask G+ not to use FB to recruit FB users to G+.

Re:anti-competitive practices

[HarrySquatter]

Google should just convince the government (FTC) that Facebook has its users locked-in.

Good luck with that. No one is "locked-in" to Facebook. One freely choose to join and one can freely choose to leave. You can freely export your pictures, etc out of Facebook and if you can't you shouldn't have made Facebook your sole storage for that info. That's your own damn fault.

An analogy: society doesn't accept it when a telephone company prohibits or hinders its users from switching providers, so why not impose the same rules on social networks?

Really? Most people don't seem to care. Many people in droves will willingly hinder themselves from switching providers by buying phones that are locked to a single provider.

By the way, we also don't allow that telephone companies spy on their users (record conversations, etc.), but that's a different story.

You're joking, right? Are you ignorant of the fact that the telcos were spying on their users for years and even got a bill passed by Congress to exempt them from lawsuits from doing so?

Wrong! Location, Interests, Tastes Trump Name

[eldavojohn]

Of course they wouldn't want the possibility of anonymity. That makes their information collection services that much less useful for targeted advertising.

You really think they care about my name when they target me for advertising? If an ad uses my name, it's creepy and a little frightening. If an ad tells me about a store in my neighborhood having a coupon, I just might click on it to print it off. They shouldn't care of I'm using my real name, they should care more about my interests, my location, what concerts I like, etc. That's how targeted advertising works. It has nothing to do with a user's true identity. Ask any marketer. They want a collection of that information and they don't want to associate it with a name because that's when you get into the privacy violation realm.

What in the world does a user's name do for targeted advertising?

Re:Wrong! Location, Interests, Tastes Trump Name

[TehNoobTrumpet]

The user's name isn't the only thing that can be made anonymous. Location, as you pointed out, is both important and fakeable.
I never said that anonymity makes targeted advertising useless, only less useful.

Re:Wrong! Location, Interests, Tastes Trump Name

[wjousts]

You really think they care about my name when they target me for advertising?

Yes. Or did you really think that Google was the only place the advertisers were getting information on you from?

remain unobserved?

[Caerdwyn]

"remain unobserved"? What social network DOESN'T observe your every last move, data-mine your communications, and sell the resulting package to any and all comers?

Seriously, do people think that you'll somehow have less privacy on Google+ than you currently have on Facebook or Twitter?

Fancy suggesting/making an alternative?

[asdf7890]

I've seen the argument that requiring you use your real identity harms those under oppressive regimes, but I don't buy it. Google+ existing does not reduce the number of outlets such people have for their views/ideas at all.

The other problem often sited is other people posting stuff about you. But having a fake ID isn't going to stop someone posting something that includes your real name if they were going to do so already.

facebook is no more anonymous, at least according to the TOS at https://www.facebook.com/terms.php:
* You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook
* You will keep your contact information accurate and up-to-date
You can't give a fake name (a name is required, and you shouldn't provide false information) and they make it a requirement that any contact info you are daft enough to hand over be kept up to date (though how they would enforce that one I have no idea). How it this any different to Google+, other than the fact Google seem to be enforcing the policy and facebook don't seem to really care as long as your using their network? What existing system are they holding up as an example there anonymity is permitted/accepted/encouraged?

Personally, I'm happy to use a network where there is a small chance of the person I'm exchanging crap with is the person I think I'm exchanging crap with. If you want something else, why not use something else. Or make your own. If there is something I don't want publicly known about me, I won't put it on any social network. When it comes down to what other people post that is linkable to me (truthfully or not), there is little I can do to control that no matter what policies the system has.

Re:Fancy suggesting/making an alternative?

[blair1q]

They don't have to enforce it until they need to use it and find it's not working. Then they point to the TOS and lock your account until you do what they want you to do.

As far as whether they do or don't enforce it, well, the millions of fake accounts pretty much tell us how that goes. Up to half of the "people" on FB are the same as one or more other "people" on FB.

Google seems interested in starting out with a community that brings identifiability as an innate feature. Likely they believe that if you are you then you won't be that troll you play on the idiot box.

Re:Fancy suggesting/making an alternative?

[Requiem18th]

Personally, I'm happy to use a network where there is a small chance of the person I'm exchanging crap with is the person I think I'm exchanging crap with.

If you can't confirm the "Alice Smith" you are talking to in G+/Facebook is the same "Alice Smith" you know in real life without relying on G+/Facebook then you still don't know who she is. In fact I'm willing to bet a year's salary that 99% of identity theft cases use common names, not pseudonyms.

Also if the only way you have to contact "Alice Smith" is G+/Facebook you don't really know her. You can't even now if the "Alice Smith" you found on G+ is the "Alice Smith" you find on Facebook and the "Alice Smith" you find on LinkedIn.

the only thing you know is what alice-smith.uk-lon.1994@gmail.com says about herself. And it hasn't any more veracity than what "asdf7890" tells about himself.

Re:Fancy suggesting/making an alternative?

[asdf7890]

the only thing you know is what alice-smith.uk-lon.1994@gmail.com says about herself.

All the people I am in contact with via G+ and facebook are either people I've physically met (and those are, aside from one or two family members who I don't block because I just don't want to bother with that argument, actually friends that I'd at least be happy to take to the pub and by a round for) or are people I've been introduced to through them.

Not that I care if my contacts want to use pseudonyms (if allowed to), but I don't have a problem with the network choosing to have a policy against and it chosing to enforce that policy. Some would ask "what about beaten wifes and people trying to explore their sexuality privately and so forth", but I'm not convinced that a pseudonym offers such people any real protection in the grand scheme of things, and they of course have the choice of not using a service that expects their real details.

And it hasn't any more veracity than what "asdf7890" tells about himself.

I'll admit that does look very hypocritical. I setup my account here as a throw-away (it was one of my "Someone on the Internet is WRONG!" moments, IIRC the first of many arguments with people who think browsers blindly accepting self-signed SSL certs is a practical solution to anything without side effects), but I ended up continuing to use it. As with all throw-away accounts I just hammered in a randomish username choice and I've not been bothered to change my profile since, which I probably should do at some point as I doubt there is anything I've posted here that I'd have any problem with being associated with the real me. If slashdot had required my real name I'd have either given it or not signed up depending upon my mood at the time. If I do sign up for a site that requires my real ID and they close my account for giving fake details, I certainly wouldn't bleat and moan about it not being fair as some have with G+ (though I would say that a polite "please correct the info or we'll have to close your account" first would be much better customer/product service).

Re:Fancy suggesting/making an alternative?

[Requiem18th]

Ugh, all you did was read me a list of your Internet preferences. My point is that a Common Name policy does nothing to prevent identity theft, spam, scams, etc. It was not an invitation to discuss how much you don't care using your real name.

Actually I wasn't calling you hypocrite for using a pseudonym in slashdot, I only meant that using a pseudonym. doesn't make your opinions any less worthy (nor any less worthless). What is hypocrite stupid is that you admit it may have deterred you from joining slashdot but don't see the problem with G+'s policy, what's more hypocrite however is that you complain about the people complaining.

What's your problem with the people complaining? Do you really think complaining about complains somehow makes everything better? But don't fuss about that. My point is that Alice Smith is not someone I should thrust.

Re:Don't care about Google+

[Wingfat]

agreed. If i cant be Wingfat on Google+ then i will - them (subtract them). I have been Wingfat since BBS days.. that is who I am on the net.. that is how people know me. but like you said I dont care at all. less Social networking means more time for me to Build and Design parts for Motorcycles and BBQs with SolidWorks.

Re:Or is it a casbah?

[interkin3tic]

The fact is that it's a gazebo pavilion temple which is on top of a large pyramid. And of course in the pyramid is a stargate.

NaN

[johnwbyrd]

esr's original analogy of the cathedral and the bazaar is not applicable to types of social networks. He was using the concept exclusively to describe software development models. "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." Unless you are capable of going into Facebook and rearranging the data tables and making your own facebook, you can't apply the concept directly here. Ergo it's a stretch to call any social network anything but a cathedral.

It's a Restaurant

[istartedi]

A trendy restaurant. 'nuff said.

Speculation

[Phics]

While some people find all the speculation entertaining, I'm not really holding my breath. In spite of the questionable analogy here, I imagine that the present incarnation of Google+ is nowhere near an accurate representation of what it will be. Google, being what they are, will probably find a compromise between the "social climate" and their own goals and thoughts on policy. And it probably will evolve. Most of the good stuff from Google gets caught up in an evolutionary process.

As far as aliases and pseudonyms, if this is really the deal-breaker that a lot of outspoken people say it is, I suspect Google will address it carefully, and not just barge into a solution. Anyone out there feel like they would prefer Google to change policies like underwear until they find something that works? As a Google+ user, I'd wait it out, and see what they come up with. It's ludicrous to believe anything is set in stone at this stage of the game, while the Google+ network is still a relatively controlled testing environment, (albeit with a lot of beta testers).

G+ is the future..

[thrillbert]

G+ is to the internet, what Yellowstone Park was to the U.S. in 1872. A beautiful landscape where people could meet, relax and enjoy the serenity.

Recently I used this example to tell friends about G+ and compared FB to an amusement park akin Disneyland where you had to pay $45 to enter the park, $5 for a coke, $15 for a picture of you and about $200 for lunch for you, your wife and 2 kids.

On the other hand, you have G+ that is not being built to hijack your information, sell you targeted items based on your 'likes and dislikes' or anything of the sort. It is truly a social network.

Whether that makes it a cathedral or a bazaar, I don't know. What I do know is that I left FB and I'm not looking back.

Re:G+ is the future..

[slater.jay]

sell you targeted items based on your 'likes and dislikes' or anything of the sort

Google is an advertising company. This is exactly what they want to do.

Re:G+ is the future..

[laxguy]

I know I shouldnt bother responding to you.. but despite the fact that they are a large advertising company, and they probably are gathering information on your tendencies, they aren't forcing stupid ads on you. Looking at the main G+ feeds page, or whatever you want to call it, I don't see any ads trying to sell me anything that I "like". Ever notice how when you "like" something on FB, there are immediately links to the left of your page offering you services and pages that are similiar to what you just "liked"? Not on G+.

Re:G+ is the future..

[blair1q]

It remains to be seen what Google will do with the information you entrust to Google+.

Re:G+ is the future..

[clonehappy]

On the other hand, you have G+ that is not being built to hijack your information, sell you targeted items based on your 'likes and dislikes' or anything of the sort. It is truly a social network.

You do realize that the "G" in "G+" stands for Google, right?

Re:G+ is the future..

[BJ_Covert_Action]

...sell you targeted items based on your 'likes and dislikes' or anything of the sort. It is truly a social network.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that is exactly what G+ is doing.

Re:G+ is the future..

[Requiem18th]

I think you left adblock plus is enabled.

Re:Or is it a casbah?

[StripedCow]

And of course in the pyramid is a stargate.

Nah, they'd need real physicists to develop such a thing, whereas google has only half-nerd software engineers capable only of making office software.

Seems like the comparison is a stretch

[jilljackson4545]

Seems like using ESR's story for comparison here is a stretch. My $.02. -jilljackson4545

Obligatory response

[93 Escort Wagon]

Medieval analogies? Look into the sci-fi future, see, it is more like ad Matrix..

Futurama usually hits closer to the truth than we'd like to admit...

Bender: Behold - The Internet!
Fry: My God! It's full of ads!

Re:More importantly

[deains]

That's what you wrote metaphorically.

Re:Don't care about Google+

[bberens]

Google+ does not have an issue with pseudonyms, they just want you to use a pseudonym that could possibly be a legitimate name. So first name zyssh doesn't count, but Jim Smith does. With apologies to zyssh, as I am clearly an insensitive clod.

Google+ Is neither Cathedral nor Bazaar.

[mysidia]

Google+ Is neither Cathedral nor Bazaar.

Google+ is closer to a concentration camp.

If you fail to conform to the norms dicacted by the Google hive mind, your account gets gGassed; which ends its entire Google life, forcing you to stop using Google services altogether.

Re:Google+ Is neither Cathedral nor Bazaar.

[grumbel]

That's partly a myth. If Google nukes your account on Google+ it doesn't nuke the rest of your Google doings, only everything attached to the "Public Profile", i.e. Buzz, +1 and some other social junk, not Google Mail or Google Docs.

Re:Google+ Is neither Cathedral nor Bazaar.

[Tekfactory]

Godwin+

Re:Google+ Is neither Cathedral nor Bazaar.

[blair1q]

Y'know, it's comparisons like that that make me think there's a few generations now that just haven't learned from the history channel that comparisons like that aren't even close to apt. There's no way at all that anything about a free online social interactive service is anything like a concentration camp.

That's besides the fact that the only thing Google+ ever asked was for you to identify yourself before letting you run free in its sandbox (or, in a few cases, after, to their embarassment), so there really is nothing negative you can say about how Google+ is governing the social network it's constructing.

But back to my point: because people don't understand actual horror, and are steeped in fake, that-looks-like-it-hurts-pass-the-popcorn horror, they're starting to lose sight of why certain things are important. And that's going to end up with actual horror at some point.

Re:Google+ Is neither Cathedral nor Bazaar.

[kaizendojo]

Tasteless analogy; and flawed. You have a choice to go to a cathedral or a bazaar when invited, and you have a choice to leave either of them.

There were no such choices for the victims of concentration camps, and they were the ones providing the services.

Re:Google+ Is neither Cathedral nor Bazaar.

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Should we change that phrase to Googwin's Law now?

Re:Why not both? Or None?

[drewzhrodague]

Huh. Facebook doesn't let me use my real online name, Drew from Zhrodague. LinkedIn allows this just fine. I am still blocked by Google+, since I use the name Drew from Zhrodague, and not my birth name. They've ignored my contributions to O'Reilly and Associates as Drew from Zhrodague, two other mentions on Google Scholar, and countless years and accounts posting also as such. So far, I can't enter the town of Google+, can't +1 anything, and can't post pictures or other stuff. Other (more famous) people can get into Google+ with their chosen names. I will either have to wait for them to unblock me, or I will simply lose interest - my bazaars and cathedrals must be elsewhere.

Huh?

[laxguy]

I guess I don't understand where all this is coming from. You're signing up for a social media site, in which you interact with other people socially. What is the point of using a pseudonym or remaining anonymous, when the whole point of the site is to interact with your friends and acquaintances? How are your friends supposed to find your profile if you are not you? Obviously I'm missing something because lots of people have a problem with this, but I just don't get it.

It's Downtown

[blair1q]

It's downtown. Overbuilt and underpopulated. Especially outside work hours.

I only feed at the Bazaar

[bobs666]

I love google.
But I have no need to start posting personal stuff all over the net thank you.

Re:Or is it a casbah?

[geminidomino]

A Gazebo?

I shoot an arrow at it...

Re:Or is it a casbah?

[interkin3tic]

If you even giggled at that, let alone "roffle"d, you have a really odd sense of humor.

So what's so bad about Cathedral?

[jbarr]

You know that it's Google. You know that it's linked to your Gmail/Google account. You know that you are required to use real information. So what's the big deal?

Why is it that we expect every service to be everything to everybody? If Google wants to attempt to create the best non-anonymous social network, so be it. Why not let them? In the mean time, maybe this is a great opportunity for some entrepreneur to create a better anonymous social network site.

Re:Don't care about Google+

[ThePangolino]

This might be useful in the furure.

Google already supports the bazaar, more than FB

[DragonWriter]

Because frankly, we already have a cathedral (LinkedIn) and a Bazaar (Facebook), so if Google wants to attract those users, they better be flexible enough to accommodate them.

Google already supports "bazaar"-style social networking (much moreso than does Facebook) via a variety of open APIs for communication and social data and support for open social tagging standards that can be used on any webpage no matter who hosts it that Google will crawl to derive and present social graph data. (OpenSocial API, Social Graph API [which provides access to data that users present on their own pages via XFN or FOAF markup], PubSubHubbub protocol and the open reference hub supporting it, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum, ad-almost-fricking-infinitum.)

Wrong question, but let me respond...

[at_slashdot]

Yes.

First, a question

[syates21]

Which one of these is emptier and has less activity than the other?

Gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it

[billstewart]

You cannot escape the gazebo.

Google+ is a has been

[Snaller]

It just doesn't know it yet.

I don't advocate real name policies...

[yuhong]

But many of the problems can and should be fixed if possible. For example, remember the Blizzard real name fiasco? Guess what this article uses as an example?

That's right trolls, now get out

[odeland]

I'm glad I won't have to sort thru thousands of invites from fake people trying to spam my stream.

G+ is neither a cathedral or a bazaar

[HomerNet]

...it's an old fashioned private club, complete with membership requirements, a bouncer at the door, and some odd activities and traditions that don't make sense to outsiders.

"Cathedral" and "Bazaar" are commerce/Command-and-Control related, not social related. Don't try to shoe-horn any of the Social things (Twitter, Facebook, Diaspora, RainbowDash.net, etc.) into something it's not.