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As CNET points out, Gmail will send you an email when this is rolled out to you. The email, which looks basically just like the help page, includes a link to the setting. I really do not think this is comparable to Facebook. When they change something I only find out about it when I see someone complaining. And usually there is nothing that I can do about it.
Regarding YouTube, you do not need a real name G+ profile. I declined when it asked me to link my YouTube username to my real name G+ profile (they share the same Gmail address), so it instead created a G+ page with my username.
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Apparently some fake-ass Facebook post is supposed to make me forget this:
There are, however, a few caveats to the system that could placate those with privacy worries. For one, this doesnāt mean that your email address will be immediately visible to your Google+ circles. It will only become known to them should you actually send an email using the new method described above. Furthermore, you can actually set who will be able to send you emails through your Google+ profile, ranging from none to anyone on the planet who has a Google+ account. Emails sent from people in your Circles will land in your Gmail Primary Inbox category, while those from complete strangers will be under the Social heading. Provided, of course, you have enabled this category feature.
In other words, your address only becomes known to others, if you yourself have sent email to someone using the same method.
Yes, itās shitty that Google has, for about the millionth time, added a feature or changed a feature without letting anyone know, and people are right to complain, but 1.) itās easy to avoid and shut off, 2.) only happens if you yourself use the feature first and 3.) hey, anyone can (and does, according to my spam folder) send email to your Gmail account anyway.
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You might like Ravetree. I also left facebook, but google+ was never an option for me because their privacy is worse than facebooks.
I wish it mattered what I like. Fact is, itās no good if I canāt get my friends and family on it.
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Really? I was pretty sure their actual customers, the ad buyers, had an actual customer service departmentā¦
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I rather like G+ but then I donāt really use it all that much. I mostly use it as sort of a private blog when Iām feeling wordy and donāt care exactly who might read it. G+ at least doesnāt seem to go out to World + Dog. But it was good to find out about this setting. As to the real name thing, I donāt quite get that. I have multiple gmail account and none of them have ever had my real name (why in hell would they?). And thatās how my G+ accounts are created. Soā¦
Interesting perspective there. Does it not bother you having all of the different kinds of communications and levels of priority all in the same box? Iād worry about missing out on something that should have been a high priority while I was wading through some stuff that could wait.
The three I have are my work email that I use EXCLUSIVELY for work stuff. I donāt want business connections contacting me through my personal accounts or any business stuff not getting seen ASAP because it got mixed in with low-priority stuff. And my older personal email address that I am slowly transitioning to being my spam/low priority box. In fact, Iād really kind of like to get rid of it, but I have used it since like the mid-90ās, so like everything Iāve ever registered for or connected to my email address pretty much ever until a couple of weeks ago when I opened the gmail one is linked to it so I donāt want to lose access to it. I thought I might just forward all that mail to the new one so Iād nearly never have to check it anymore, but having had it so long (and admittedly having had it when I was very young and spam was still kind of new and privacy or a neat inbox wasnāt a big deal, I gave a LOT of things my email address that were super spammy). My new gmail address is for high priority personal stuff.
My social networking stuff is all stuff thatās pretty low-priority time wise. Interest wise, itās higher priority than any of my email boxes. And itās a different feel, itās full of fun. Itās things I want to see from people and things that I like. A lot of email isnāt really necessarily. I like that facebook is all social and email is more a business thing. Even if itās personal business rather than work business.
I have (counts) 82 filtering rules which organize incoming e-mail into various inbox sub-folders (tags) within the same e-mail account, based on criteria including sender, subject, mailing list, etc. So I can read and search it all as one stream, or pick out individual sub-streams.
I have a totally separate work inbox, but thatās really more for legal reasons than anything else.
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No. Not even them.
http://www.mattheaton.com/?p=38
http://www.whatsnextblog.com/2011/07/googles-missing-link-customer-service-it-has-none/
http://righteousmarketing.com/hey-google-adwords-customer-support-anybody-there
Yeah, I thought that was also pretty unnecessary. G+ is more of a quality than quantity sort of thing. Lots of really smart/creative people post there, donāt post crap, and will interact with you. But hey, letās crap on it because itās not full of idiots playing Farmville and posting those godawful cartoon statuses.
I donāt love the āone ID to rule them allā policy they have going on at Google, but in that I work in IT, I completely understand it.
Apparently some fake-ass Facebook post is supposed to make me forget this:That's wasn't the point, but I had a feeling it'd fly over your head and you'd have an amusingly fanboy-ish response. Thanks for not disappointing.
The point of my āfake-ass Facebookā graphic was that you made a cathartic post that reads like many vapid Facebook posts. Slice of life, anecdotal stuff thatās particularly uninterestingā¦ of course, while all the while snidely complaining that the boing boing post doesnāt apply to your own personal situation. Itās like youāre mumbling to yourself in publicā¦ hahaā¦ stream of unconciousnessā¦
Welp, in the meantimeā¦ I have some anecdotal issues that Boing Boing hasnāt catered to me personally either, so Iām going to go on about complaining about itā¦ hahahaā¦
ā¦butā¦umā¦Iām sure itāll matter in some, personal way.
Given how much BoingBoing gripes about security, and about Google ā¦ why do any of you have a Gmail account in the first place? Get a real mailbox.
If you arenāt paying for it. itās going to be run for their convenience, not for yours.
Without letting anyone know? Rubbish. They made a public announcement (and every tech journalist pounced on it with misinformation as usual.) and they send every user an email outlining exactly how to manage the settings as soon as it was available.
What a tempest in a teacup.
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What? Nooooo, that never happens. Next youāre going to tell me that Boing Boing is given to histrionics.
Thanks for the heads-up; I wasnāt aware that it was public.
BRB, microwaving the popcorn now.
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So I went and checked my gmail settings this morning. The default setting was āCirclesā, which to me says: weāve made it possible for people you thought interesting enough to follow to contact you.
Am I missing something? Or has bemoaning the change become the default reaction to anything any social media service does?
aside from the hosts 
From a features, ease-of-use, user-irritation, and speed perspective, G+ is superior to Facebook, Iāll agree. However, without enough market share to keep things interesting, it is a failure. This is a hard lesson, Paul (sorry, dune reference, couldnāt help myself).
When it comes to social networking, itās not enough to build a Facebook that isnāt an obnoxious piece of shit. Youāve got to give people a reason to want to be there. I suspect thatās the real reason behind the new requirement of G+ for Youtube. Theyāre trying to replace the āwant to be thereā with a requirement in order to use something youāve likely already been using.
Not saying youāre a Youtube comment maven ā¦ just saying that when they pushed the requirement through, I was required to tell Youtube what G+ I was viewing as in order to watch videos while logged into the Google platform.
So, now I have all sorts of G+ profiles under the same account because fuck your āRealā Name requirement, Google. Iām trans* and have a stalkish harasser. Fucking internet does not need my legal name anywhere on it.
The U.S. needs to adopt Germanyās laws concerning āRealā Name requirements and privacy yesterday. Clearly tech companies are not getting the picture (Google, Facebook, HuffPo ā¦ list likely goes on).
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