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from the arrows-buy-ennui-utter-gnome-our-crust-as-wheat dept.
According to the Google+ Page, Google is finally giving up on forcing everyone to user their real names to join Google+.
When we launched Google+ over three years ago, we had a lot of restrictions on what name you could use on your profile. This helped create a community made up of real people, but it also excluded a number of people who wanted to be part of it without using their real names.
Over the years, as Google+ grew and its community became established, we steadily opened up this policy, from allowing +Page owners to use any name of their choosing to letting YouTube users bring their usernames into Google+. Today, we are taking the last step: there are no more restrictions on what name you can use.
We know you've been calling for this change for a while. We know that our names policy has been unclear, and this has led to some unnecessarily difficult experiences for some of our users. For this we apologize, and we hope that today's change is a step toward making Google+ the welcoming and inclusive place that we want it to be. Thank you for expressing your opinions so passionately, and thanks for continuing to make Google+ the thoughtful community that it is.
I know many folks that refused to join Plus, just because of the restrictions and the fact that they *cough* suggest you to anyone in your contacts. They've given up on youtube comments, app store ratings, and a dozen other things that require Plus accounts.
Some might now join, though most probably won't simply because Google was so darn stubborn about this for so darn long.
What say the Soylentils?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MrGuy on Wednesday July 16 2014, @04:39PM
Hands up who thinks this is "the thing" that's going to make GooglePlus a viable Facebook alternative?
Most people ALREADY use their real name on Facebook, or at least aren't shy about linking it to their real name in their profile.
As I understand it, the main reason that people were against the "real name" policy wasn't the "they can identify me!" aspect, as much as that it made "cause/issue" pages impossible (e.g. "Delta Airlines sucks!" as a page). Sure, lifting that barrier is nice, but it's hardly like people were ready to flock to G+ if only it had this one feature.
Also, if people are thinking "I didn't want Google tracking me!", newsflash - Google already has plenty of info to identify you, even if you don't use your real name as your G+ profile ID. This is pure and simply whether OTHER USERS see your real name, and whether a given "real person" can/should be restricted to one-and-only-one account G+ account.
This is, I guess, a step in a less incorrect direction, but it's a useless one. G+ failed. Deal with it. Either get some actually compelling features to get people to switch from Facebook (and you'd really need a "wow factor" to do that at this point), or give up on G+. Expecting "getting closer to feature parity with Facebook!" to matter is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of how a social network works and what makes them successful. Which is kind of important to have a firm grasp on if, y'know, you're trying to BUILD ONE.
I'll say it again - people choose to use a social network primarily because OTHER PEOPLE they want to connect with use that social network.