Because we (want to) have distinct personas online to interact with distinct circles (oh, the irony) of people, and scoping our involvement to a particular corp

Because we (want to) have distinct personas online to interact with distinct circles (oh, the irony) of people, and scoping our involvement to a particular corporation's particular product is one way we achieve that. When a new product is aggressively forced into our online presence, it has consequences. No one who joined Facebook joined because they wanted free webmail, or a document collaboration platform, or upload and comment on funny videos with a pseudonym; so we knew what we were getting: social networking. On the other hand, most people who got started with a Google account did so because of Gmail or Docs; meanwhile Youtube was a distinct network with pseudonyms. The Google+ push introduced real names on Youtube, and presented a cross-correlated 'Google identity' for every Google user, creating a social network where there was no user expectation of one.