4 ms·

Disclaimer: I'm a Google competitor. Good and fair points. The big issue here is the fact that all of what you said is tied to a persons real life identity. I

Disclaimer: I'm a Google competitor. Good and fair points. The big issue here is the fact that all of what you said is tied to a persons real life identity. I think people should have the option to choose whether they want to surf the web using a pseudonym, or doing it with their real name. Google forces people to use their real name in order to be able to squeeze out more profits per user. Socially slanted search is the future, and I agree with that. But not in the way that Google is doing it. Not everything has to be social.

aniket_ray 13y ago
I'm not entirely sure whether or even how real names could really help with increasing profits for online advertising. I'd say interests and preferences would matter but I can't see how the name would. Google+ does support nicknames and pseudonyms now, but yes there is a preference for users to use their real names. Also personally, I don't really think real anonymity truly exists on the web anymore and in such a scenario I trust the bigger companies more than the thousands of tracking companies but I'll write that rant sometime else. Coming back to real names in Google+, I'm not entirely sure why Google+ prefers it, but I think it ties in with generating better social signals. Facebook really showed the way here. If people use their real names it's easier to find real friends. I also would care about signals/content created by friends with real names. I'd care more what a particular friend I know has recommended more that what rockstar_spongebob has. Also if I'm rockstar_spongebob on a website, I'd lose the incentive to connect with only people who are my "real" friends and I'll end up adding lots of people at random. I think this is what happened on Digg and these "friendships" had no true affinity (atleast on Digg). I truly would never have cared about restaurants recommended by my Digg friends. Of course these reasons are just my guesses and I really have no research/data to back it up.
jacquesm 13y ago
> I'm a Google competitor. I think it would be fair to say that you're trying to compete with google. Yahoo! is a Google competitor, Microsoft is, Apple too. The rest of us, we're just trying. As long as we're not on their radar we've failed to establish any mode of competition that matters. Even DuckDuckGo (for now) does not qualify.

aniket_ray 13y ago

I'm not entirely sure whether or even how real names could really help with increasing profits for online advertising. I'd say interests and preferences would matter but I can't see how the name would. Google+ does support nicknames and pseudonyms now, but yes there is a preference for users to use their real names. Also personally, I don't really think real anonymity truly exists on the web anymore and in such a scenario I trust the bigger companies more than the thousands of tracking companies but I'll write that rant sometime else. Coming back to real names in Google+, I'm not entirely sure why Google+ prefers it, but I think it ties in with generating better social signals. Facebook really showed the way here. If people use their real names it's easier to find real friends. I also would care about signals/content created by friends with real names. I'd care more what a particular friend I know has recommended more that what rockstar_spongebob has. Also if I'm rockstar_spongebob on a website, I'd lose the incentive to connect with only people who are my "real" friends and I'll end up adding lots of people at random. I think this is what happened on Digg and these "friendships" had no true affinity (atleast on Digg). I truly would never have cared about restaurants recommended by my Digg friends. Of course these reasons are just my guesses and I really have no research/data to back it up.

jacquesm 13y ago

> I'm a Google competitor. I think it would be fair to say that you're trying to compete with google. Yahoo! is a Google competitor, Microsoft is, Apple too. The rest of us, we're just trying. As long as we're not on their radar we've failed to establish any mode of competition that matters. Even DuckDuckGo (for now) does not qualify.