5 ms·

Mark Zuckerberg's profile on Google+

14 points by nextparadigms 15y ago

At this point, who can blame him.

nextparadigms 15y ago
By the way, what's with the fugly Google+ URL's? Don't you agree they should make the URL's a lot nicer? There is no vanity URL either, which I'm sure quite a lot of people would like. Google has never seemed to get this. You should look at Google Sites url's. It's like 5 words in there before you even see your site's name. I wish they made them a bit more elegant and streamlined.
- iambot 15y ago
  agreed, totally and utterly. human readable urls are such a "tend" accepted wisdom, that i find it hard to believe it wouldn't be implemented
  - Roritharr 15y ago
    I've started questioning their importance. For some apps it's really difficult to get them done and the impact is not that great because people are mostly traversing link trees nowadays and most times simply use google to get somewhere... Twitter shortens even nice urls, so why bother?
- corin_ 15y ago
  Interestingly, the old Google Profiles did do this, my URL was https://profiles.google.com/corin.c.cole https://profiles.google.com/corin.c.cole I would imagine it will come to plus some time in the near future.
  - themal 15y ago
    They probably turned it off for privacy. If you found an old Google profile URL, then you also knew the email address at Gmail, which would render Gmail useless for people who value their privacy. Ideally, they need to offer the option to have a URL that is different from the Gmail address.
    - corin_ 15y ago
      But in terms of code it's very easy to change the system so that it lets users pick their URL - the question is more whether Google will decide to do it, and the fact that they used vanity URLs in the old profiles suggests they may well.
- zacharypinter 15y ago
  Google+ is likely built with GWT, which requires more effort than say Rails to get nice URLs. My guess is that nice URLs are in the pipeline, but they weren't an initial priority.
- mtkd 15y ago
  I hope they do something on the namespacing. Linkedin appear to be including a country name in the URL now which increases namespacing, but that isn't enough. This is one of the biggest challenges I see online and in gaming at the moment: How do you namespace identity in a way that gives everyone an appropriate vanity URL and scales indefinitely? Currently every system seems to end up like XBL with '{{!! MyNAMEz !!}}'. If XBL is like this now - what will it be like in 10 years. I think I saw some planned Google Apps profile URLs somewhere that used the format /yourdomain/name - that could be a start.
  - pavel_lishin 15y ago
    Perhaps people could specify their own custom namespace.
gazrogers 15y ago
It would hardly be surprising if he had joined to see if there was anything to worry about, would it?
- FlowerPower 15y ago
  He looks worried on his profile picture.
iambot 15y ago
At the risk of stating the obvious, I don't think its really him, but a nice bit of PR either way - subtle.
- skarayan 15y ago
  Even if he joined, he would likely use a different name.
  - pavel_lishin 15y ago
    Why?
    - skarayan 15y ago
      What would be the benefit? It would be just something else to deal with and cause attention in the press.
      - pavel_lishin 15y ago
        Well, for one, how do we know that he doesn't have an anonymous account? And for two, if he only had an anonymous account, it could reflect badly on him as well - recall the Scott Adams sock puppet fiasco from awhile back.
- theblueadept111 15y ago
  No, stating the obvious would be: Of course he wants to see what his competition looks like first hand, and you can't test a social network without networking with people who know who you actually are. Is he supposed to slink around like a frightened thief? No, he'd join, steal the good ideas, and say "so long and thanks for all the fish"... like a Boss.
someone13 15y ago
At first, I was skeptical. But if you look at the people that he has in his circles, it starts to look more and more legit (Blake Ross from Mozilla, Pedram Keyani from Facebook, Sam Lessin from Drop.io, now owned by FB, etc.) In this case, I'm gonna go with "yes, this is actually him".
djackson 15y ago
Wouldn't you do the same thing?
- someone13 15y ago
  Not sure why you're getting downvoted - you have a valid point. If a competitor came out with a product, I would absolutely investigate it and see how it compares. Not to mention, if I were a well-known person, reserving my name before any scammer could.
silverlight 15y ago
There's a pretty big difference between "joined" and "switched". This title is ridiculous.
int3rnaut 15y ago
One way or another he's on Google+ scoping it out and sizing up the competition; hypothesizing the social war that is about to come.
benbscholz 15y ago
He probably wants to explore the competition...
widget 15y ago
Why would it be surprising to see him on there? Dogfooding is a good idea, but in this case, there's nothing stopping someone from using both Facebook and Google+. He'd be foolish to not be on Google+, how else is he supposed to know where he's winning and where he might lose users.

14 points by nextparadigms 15y ago

At this point, who can blame him.

By the way, what's with the fugly Google+ URL's? Don't you agree they should make the URL's a lot nicer? There is no vanity URL either, which I'm sure quite a lot of people would like. Google has never seemed to get this. You should look at Google Sites url's. It's like 5 words in there before you even see your site's name. I wish they made them a bit more elegant and streamlined.

iambot 15y ago
agreed, totally and utterly. human readable urls are such a "tend" accepted wisdom, that i find it hard to believe it wouldn't be implemented
- Roritharr 15y ago
  I've started questioning their importance. For some apps it's really difficult to get them done and the impact is not that great because people are mostly traversing link trees nowadays and most times simply use google to get somewhere... Twitter shortens even nice urls, so why bother?
corin_ 15y ago
Interestingly, the old Google Profiles did do this, my URL was https://profiles.google.com/corin.c.cole https://profiles.google.com/corin.c.cole I would imagine it will come to plus some time in the near future.
- themal 15y ago
  They probably turned it off for privacy. If you found an old Google profile URL, then you also knew the email address at Gmail, which would render Gmail useless for people who value their privacy. Ideally, they need to offer the option to have a URL that is different from the Gmail address.
  - corin_ 15y ago
    But in terms of code it's very easy to change the system so that it lets users pick their URL - the question is more whether Google will decide to do it, and the fact that they used vanity URLs in the old profiles suggests they may well.
zacharypinter 15y ago
Google+ is likely built with GWT, which requires more effort than say Rails to get nice URLs. My guess is that nice URLs are in the pipeline, but they weren't an initial priority.
mtkd 15y ago
I hope they do something on the namespacing. Linkedin appear to be including a country name in the URL now which increases namespacing, but that isn't enough. This is one of the biggest challenges I see online and in gaming at the moment: How do you namespace identity in a way that gives everyone an appropriate vanity URL and scales indefinitely? Currently every system seems to end up like XBL with '{{!! MyNAMEz !!}}'. If XBL is like this now - what will it be like in 10 years. I think I saw some planned Google Apps profile URLs somewhere that used the format /yourdomain/name - that could be a start.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  Perhaps people could specify their own custom namespace.

gazrogers 15y ago

It would hardly be surprising if he had joined to see if there was anything to worry about, would it?

FlowerPower 15y ago
He looks worried on his profile picture.

iambot 15y ago

At the risk of stating the obvious, I don't think its really him, but a nice bit of PR either way - subtle.

skarayan 15y ago
Even if he joined, he would likely use a different name.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  Why?
  - skarayan 15y ago
    What would be the benefit? It would be just something else to deal with and cause attention in the press.
    - pavel_lishin 15y ago
      Well, for one, how do we know that he doesn't have an anonymous account? And for two, if he only had an anonymous account, it could reflect badly on him as well - recall the Scott Adams sock puppet fiasco from awhile back.
theblueadept111 15y ago
No, stating the obvious would be: Of course he wants to see what his competition looks like first hand, and you can't test a social network without networking with people who know who you actually are. Is he supposed to slink around like a frightened thief? No, he'd join, steal the good ideas, and say "so long and thanks for all the fish"... like a Boss.

someone13 15y ago

At first, I was skeptical. But if you look at the people that he has in his circles, it starts to look more and more legit (Blake Ross from Mozilla, Pedram Keyani from Facebook, Sam Lessin from Drop.io, now owned by FB, etc.) In this case, I'm gonna go with "yes, this is actually him".

djackson 15y ago

Wouldn't you do the same thing?

someone13 15y ago
Not sure why you're getting downvoted - you have a valid point. If a competitor came out with a product, I would absolutely investigate it and see how it compares. Not to mention, if I were a well-known person, reserving my name before any scammer could.

silverlight 15y ago

There's a pretty big difference between "joined" and "switched". This title is ridiculous.

int3rnaut 15y ago

One way or another he's on Google+ scoping it out and sizing up the competition; hypothesizing the social war that is about to come.

benbscholz 15y ago

He probably wants to explore the competition...

widget 15y ago

Why would it be surprising to see him on there? Dogfooding is a good idea, but in this case, there's nothing stopping someone from using both Facebook and Google+. He'd be foolish to not be on Google+, how else is he supposed to know where he's winning and where he might lose users.