http://bit.ly/ofbZ1j Technology Bytes - 03.01.06

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Ever before considering that Google introduced its new Google+ social network, we and other individuals have pointed out that the research giant obviously has much more in mind than just providing a nice spot for folks to share images of their pets. For one thing, Google demands to tap into the “social signals” that folks present by means of networks like Facebook so it can improve its search final results. But there’s a larger motive as well: as chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt admitted in an job interview in Edinburgh above the weekend, Google is taking a challenging line on the actual-name concern due to the fact it sees Google+ as an “identity service” or platform on which it can construct other items.
Schmidt’s responses came for the duration of an interview with Andy Carvin, the Nationwide Public Radio digital editor who has turn into a a single-gentleman newswire for the duration of the Arab Spring revolutions. Carvin asked the Google chairman about the company’s reasoning for pushing its genuine-name policies on Google+ — a coverage that several have criticized (including us) because it excludes possibly beneficial viewpoints that may possibly be expressed by political dissidents and other individuals who choose to continue to be anonymous. In result, Schmidt said Google isn’t intrigued in altering its policies to accommodate those sorts of users: if people want to continue being anonymous, he stated, then they should not use Google+.
Google+ is mainly an “identity service”
But it was the previous Google CEO’s remarks about the rationale for this coverage that ended up most fascinating: He didn’t just say — as Vic Gundotra, the Google executive in charge of the new social network has — that having real names maintains a particular tone of conduct that is far more preferable to anonymous discussion boards (an argument that online-group pioneer Derek Powazek has also manufactured). In accordance to Carvin, Schmidt mentioned the reason Google requirements customers with actual names is that the company sees Google+ as the core of an identification platform it is creating that can be utilized for other things:

He (Eric) replied by saying that G+ was create mostly as an identification support, so essentially, it is dependent on individuals making use of their genuine names if they’re heading to create long term merchandise that leverage that details.

As Union Square Ventures spouse Fred Wilson noted in a weblog publish in response to Schmidt’s remarks, this is an admission by the firm that it would like to be an identification gatekeeper. Other folks have made related observations since the start of Google+. Programmer and on the internet veteran Dave Winer, for illustration, stated when the genuine-name coverage initial started out to turn out to be a scorching-button problem that Google’s purpose was obviously to “provide identification in a commerce-all set way. And to give them data about what you do on the Web, without obfuscation of pseudonyms.” In his blog post, Fred Wilson explained:

It begs the problem of whom Google developed this support for? You or them. And the reply to why you need to use your true identify in the services is because they want you to.

True names are more useful to advertisers

As I tried to outline in a current GigaOM Pro study report entitled “How social search is transforming the research industry” (subscription needed), there’s an apparent research-connected rationale for launching a social network like Google+, given that indexing and mining that kind of exercise can assist the business provide greater “social search” benefits. But the true-title concern has a lot more to do with Google’s other business: namely, advertising. Users who are anonymous or pseudonymous are arguably a whole lot significantly less useful to advertisers than those who decide on to attach their actual identities, including their age and gender, area and other demographic particulars to their accounts.
What kind of solutions is Schmidt referring to when he says that Google is looking at Google+ as an identity platform that could assistance other companies? Dave Winer thinks that the company needs to effectively become a bank — a thing he also suspects that Apple and Amazon are intrigued in as effectively — and that’s undoubtedly a probability. Apple and Google each seem to be intrigued in NFC technology (in the vicinity of-area conversation), which turns mobile gadgets into electronic wallets, and possessing a social network tied to an personal user’s identity would occur in handy. Ross Dawson says Google would like to construct a “reputation engine” using Google+ as a platform.
Whichever its particular passions are, Google obviously sees Facebook as a competitive threat not just since it has produced a gigantic social network with hundreds of millions of devoted customers, but also since it has become a sort of identity gatekeeper — with tens of hundreds of thousands of people devoted consumers happily logging into other websites and solutions with their Facebook credentials, therefore sending Facebook important information about what they are carrying out and in which they are performing it. And the ubiquitous “like” button supplies even far more info, some thing Google is also making an attempt to mimic with its +1 buttons.
Google demands a horse in the identification race
The bottom line is that Google demands to have a horse in this identity race, and it has been unable to develop one particular so far. The development of Google+ supplies a cause for individuals to generate Google profiles, and that information — alongside with their activity on the network and via +1 buttons — goes into the huge Google cyberplex where it can be crunched and indexed and codified in a hundred distinct techniques. And the a lot more men and women who determine to do it, the much better it gets, equally for Google and for its advertising and marketing technique. As the saying goes, if you are not paying out for it, then you are the item staying marketed.
That is the obvious track record to the real-title problem, one thing Eric Schmidt has effectively confirmed with his remarks in Edinburgh. Whether or not consumers like the position that puts them in remains to be observed.
Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Flickr user Kat B Photography
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