As per a recent Bloomberg Business Week report Eric Schmidt has admitted that Google + plans to own your online identity and is hence actively discouraging pseudonymity and anonymity in its social network.
What Google does not probably realize is that such quixotic restrictions on the web are meaningless and will only make its social network less popular in the long run. The early numbers of 25 million subscribers that its spiders and web giant status brought in during the first week should not melt away into oblivion similar to its past social projects like Google Buzz.
Over one out of three Twitter and Facebook users including the powerful celebrities use pseudo names for a variety of reasons. Some use it for convenience as their own names are long or simply not tweetable, others use them to give out a message of their cause, some do it to simply to hide themselves from public glare while others to appear larger than life. Twitter and Facebook has millions of users with pseudo names who don’t need Google+. They would just pass a newbie social network like Google + once it puts up such bizarre conditions for membership.
Why then is Google + pursuing such a risk prone path despite outcry and criticism. One reason could be that it is blinded by the fact that the Google+ button is being shown in over a million websites and appears in 4 billion impressions per day. That could have mistakenly prompted Google to consider that it is already winning the social networking battle with Facebook and Twitter and ot now wants to stamp its own terms.
Another reason is that it will network Adsense with the Google plus users trying to built a wider support base on its claim to online publishing. Though Adsense offers crumbs to publishers the mere posting of the Google + button would make other publishers wary of approaching the Google +users. This becomes increasingly important for Google because Amazon with a stronger publishing reputation would sooner than later enter the fray through its cloud.
A third reason probably is cyber security and Google’s plans to enter this lucrative and critical domain for success of its web browser the Google Chrome. Cyber attacks on big corporations and Government websites have become increasingly pre-dominant and an issue of great concern which no organization has been confident to tackle. It is not only big brands like Sony and Amazon but even defense contractors like Lockheed International, besides the CIA, FBI, Visa and Master Card whose sites have been under attack by individuals, organizations and even competing nations.
After the News of the World scandal involving James Murdoch and his team of U.K. based journalists caught hacking into web and mobile data to get news scoops it has become increasingly clear that hacking and cyber attacks is an institutional tool. It is no longer an odd rotten egg that is thrown at your website by an angry geek but an incisive tool to gather critical information to stay ahead in the information age.
Linking your search to online security could practically stop most cyber attacks on the web believe online security experts. This is because everyone would normally survey the any attack object, well before they start firing in the missiles. Google + effort to own your online identity could be an effort to tag you and your search well before you start to hack into a corporate or Government website.
BY: Sandip Sen
What Google does not probably realize is that such quixotic restrictions on the web are meaningless and will only make its social network less popular in the long run. The early numbers of 25 million subscribers that its spiders and web giant status brought in during the first week should not melt away into oblivion similar to its past social projects like Google Buzz.
Over one out of three Twitter and Facebook users including the powerful celebrities use pseudo names for a variety of reasons. Some use it for convenience as their own names are long or simply not tweetable, others use them to give out a message of their cause, some do it to simply to hide themselves from public glare while others to appear larger than life. Twitter and Facebook has millions of users with pseudo names who don’t need Google+. They would just pass a newbie social network like Google + once it puts up such bizarre conditions for membership.
Why then is Google + pursuing such a risk prone path despite outcry and criticism. One reason could be that it is blinded by the fact that the Google+ button is being shown in over a million websites and appears in 4 billion impressions per day. That could have mistakenly prompted Google to consider that it is already winning the social networking battle with Facebook and Twitter and ot now wants to stamp its own terms.
Another reason is that it will network Adsense with the Google plus users trying to built a wider support base on its claim to online publishing. Though Adsense offers crumbs to publishers the mere posting of the Google + button would make other publishers wary of approaching the Google +users. This becomes increasingly important for Google because Amazon with a stronger publishing reputation would sooner than later enter the fray through its cloud.
A third reason probably is cyber security and Google’s plans to enter this lucrative and critical domain for success of its web browser the Google Chrome. Cyber attacks on big corporations and Government websites have become increasingly pre-dominant and an issue of great concern which no organization has been confident to tackle. It is not only big brands like Sony and Amazon but even defense contractors like Lockheed International, besides the CIA, FBI, Visa and Master Card whose sites have been under attack by individuals, organizations and even competing nations.
After the News of the World scandal involving James Murdoch and his team of U.K. based journalists caught hacking into web and mobile data to get news scoops it has become increasingly clear that hacking and cyber attacks is an institutional tool. It is no longer an odd rotten egg that is thrown at your website by an angry geek but an incisive tool to gather critical information to stay ahead in the information age.
Linking your search to online security could practically stop most cyber attacks on the web believe online security experts. This is because everyone would normally survey the any attack object, well before they start firing in the missiles. Google + effort to own your online identity could be an effort to tag you and your search well before you start to hack into a corporate or Government website.
BY: Sandip Sen
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