Google - The Great Mahou Shounen Halfey Magica

[Early Impression] The God-des of Misfortune is here! (and a little something about Sengoku Collection ep. 14 and NakaImo)

By Halfey Halphstein | July 6, 2012 - 11:32 pm | anime, criticism, review

While I’m waiting for Summer 2012 Anime… (We’re recruiting!)

By Halfey Halphstein | June 30, 2012 - 10:22 pm | communication, computer, criticism, internet, interpost, music, not really anime, status, technology, upcoming

[Not anime] A certain mobile device with the ’7′ moniker but doesn’t come with Windows Phone 7

By Halfey Halphstein | June 28, 2012 - 10:50 pm | communication, computer, entertainment, internet, not anime, technology

[Interpost] When Facebook suddenly feels like doing things better than G+ or Twitter

By Halfey Halphstein | February 14, 2012 - 9:40 pm | communication, internet, not anime

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In the world of the ‘borderless’ internet, why bother to roll-out new features/functionalities/updates in phases (either randomly or based on region) when it has nothing to do with local laws? Yes, I ‘m talking to Google, (and Twitter may join to listen too). Why can’t make it simultaneously towards all users, all at once?

This is getting annoying, when you decide to treat many of us like 2nd class citizens. I know we’re using your services free of all charges but that is not an excuse for you to treat us discriminatingly. As human being that uses your service, all of us reserve the right to get the new updates all at the same time without anybody being served earlier or later.

I’m saying this because I hate how I always late in getting updates for Google services. For example when they started offering G+ beta last year, I was among the first few hundreds (if not millions) of registered Google Account users to request for an ‘official’ invitation but I never got any until somebody was generous enough to send a ‘friendly’ (not ‘official’) invitation to me. This made me kind of pissed-off because I was invited ‘officially’ by Google when GMail was still invitation only years ago.

Not only that, in the last few days people have been talking about the return of G+ Blackbar. Last year Google promised to phase-out the black bar by replacing it with the “whitebar” but I never got to enjoy the white bar until today, now that the black bar is returning, which means even if I’m going to get the white bar anytime soon I’d never get to experience the G+ without the blackbar. I feel seriously discriminated now.

And today another new feature is being rolled-out, which is the ability to mute the annoying “What’s Hot” feature. Until now the only way for me to get rid of it is using third party scripts which adds a burden to my browser because I’m yet to get the ‘Mute’ slider that already present in individual circle stream! This is crazy!

I did mention Twitter earlier right? Yes, twitter is also the ‘champion’ in doing this, almost as bad as Google, if not worse. Since I started using it they’ve at least rolled-out 3 major updates, and yeah in phases. I remember the first one I experienced was the “#newtwitter” interface, followed by the built-in image hosting service. Late last year I received the “newer #newtwitter” that once again revamped the interface. Sure they’re all good in their own ways, except that I’m always being among the late parties to receive them! Even Facebook, my most-hated social network among the three, does it better.

Now, if only I could make my own social network I’d combine the best ideas from all 3 major social networks (FB, +, Twitter) as well as adding features I deem as missing from those networks. Well that’s just my dream. After all if I really need to succeed in introducing a completely new social network I’d need to have an established brand like Google or at least have started it way back to 5 or 6 years ago, the year I deem as the beginning of social networking boom.

[Interpost] Google+ finally allows pseudonyms? My ass! #nymwars

By Halfey Halphstein | January 24, 2012 - 12:48 pm | humanity, internet, interpost, not anime

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I do hereby dedicate the above word to Google/G+ for their hypocrisy.

(Written in response to this G+ post by Bradley Horowitz himself. FYI Bradley Horowitz is Google VP of Product.)

This is the major ‘headline’ I saw in many web publications today. Yes, Google might have finally allowed pseudonyms on G+ but if you ask me it’s only half-true because it’s not so much different from how it was. The new policy for pseudonyms is still damn restrictive and only allow the usage to a limited extent. Read on.

Unless I am missing something, this may not be “true” pseudonym support, but an expansion of the “other names” field that’s been there since the beginning. Crucially, you cannot choose to make the desired nickname the primary display name. That doesn’t seem to solve the problem many/most users affected had with G+.

Until they do add the ability to choose which name is the default visible to the public on the web, these adjustments seem to be shuffling existing functionality around to create the appearance of working on the problem.

The worst part about this change of policy here is it took an awfully long time to happen ever since they made the announcement about it October last year. Well it’s been around half a year that G+ goes public, and Google is still blisteringly clueless. Sad, really.

For some people, their nickname has for all practical purposes been their actual name for a lifetime. I wonder why it is so hard for a ‘professional’ company like Google to understand, or even to accept that fact. Now, take a look at this:

“If we flag the name you intend to use, you can provide us with information to help confirm your established identity. This might include:

- References to an established identity offline in print media, news articles, etc
- Scanned official documentation, such as a driver’s license
- Proof of an established identity online with a meaningful following”

Why would you still need an evidence when people should be allowed to use whatever names they’d like other people to refer to them? Also how about people who just about to ‘develop’ their online pseudonyms (people who just started using internet extensively) and G+ was chosen as their starting point? Also does that mean pseudonyms are allowed only if they’re ‘established’? What kind of stupidity is this?

If you saw the title “Google+ finally allows pseudonyms” anywhere online today, I must say it is incorrect if according to the quoted text above. Google does not allow pseudonyms, unless you have a “meaningful following,” which you have to prove to them while your account is frozen. All they have done is account for the celebrity stage name loophole, which was making them look like hypocrites. Other than that, all you can do is add a nickname or non-Latin alphabet name to your “common name” (whatever that means) in quotes or parentheses.

The bottom line is that Google still wants to control what people call themselves online, they are just making exceptions for celebrities and other well-known personalities who have been using pen names. Ordinary people who cannot or will not use their legal names online are still not welcome. Shame on Google.

They have only done something about their obvious-to-a-child hypocrisy of letting Snoop Dogg and others use pseudonyms! Adding a nick in between your first and last name means nothing to me as I am concerned about privacy COMPLETELY. Total shame on Google, other accounts like Twitter account would not be accepted as proof if you have only around 200 followers because that is “not good enough” to Google. Google is losing and now it wants to not be a hypocrite while still having the same rules.

Smoke and mirrors.

This is smoke and mirrors to cover their hypocrisy for letting users like Snoop Dogg use a pseudonym while the rest of us “common folk” are forced to use real names. They don’t want to be hypocrites yet they still are. That said, for me the so-called “policy update” here means nothing.

First off they want to pad their G+ numbers by including those that don’t even use G+ by requiring that when you sign up for a Google Account you also create a G+ profile. The stats they give are for people who use any Google service. I don’t care about stats so this isn’t what bothers me.

NOTE: Anyone sails through the sign up process for a Google account. Google takes any name right away. You are in in no time. Then they deactivate and ask for ID. This could be different with their new sign-up process but I haven’t tried it and don’t intend to.

Facebook has a real name policy but they don’t enforce it like Google does. You can even change your name a couple of times. When G+ first came out you could edit your name daily if you wanted to. Facebook is meant for staying in contact with friends and family whereas G+ is clearly a social network to reach out to like-minded strangers as there is one-way follow just like Twitter. That somehow makes Facebook sounds better than G+ although I have no intention to say that G+ is worse than Facebook. Now look at this again:

“When we analyze the set of all name appeals on Google+, we find that they generally fall into three major categories:
- The majority (60%) of these users want to simply add nicknames.
- About 20% of appeals are actually businesses (who are inadvertently trying to set up their business as a Profile, rather than using Google+ Pages which were intended for this purpose.)
- And the remaining 20% would either prefer to use a pseudonym or another unconventional name. ”

THESE ARE MORE PADDED NUMBERS! Google would like you to believe that only .020 of 1% of users of G+ want to use a pseudonym! These numbers are for people who are signing up for G+ which they just let you sail through. I bet if you tried to sign up for an account using Lance Lancelot they would just let you sail through and then once in, a week or so later, they would deactivate your G+ account asking for an ID to prove your name. This is what they have been doing to everyone who got booted! How else do you get booted once you have an account you have obviously gone through the sign-up flow already!

Such losers to pad all numbers. Smoke and mirrors.

Clearly Google needs to remember that the Internet is a public place and that no one owns it. If Google wants subscribers to its “we have one too” social app, then leave the people alone and let them go about their affairs in peace. And I do hereby declare that the Nymwars is not over, yet.

[Interpost] Faildroid (and why it’s no big deal)

By Halfey Halphstein | October 25, 2011 - 2:49 pm | communication, interpost, technology

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I know too Android is not a perfect OS. As an OS that is built on top of a slightly modified Linux kernel, it has its flaws too. However that is what makes me prefer it over iOS.

I found two biggest flaws in Android. Initially there were three (the third one was the source code is only available for the current release though not necessarily available at launch but I’m no developer so it’s OK).

My first issue with Android is it is not available for general public but only to phone makers. It is not something that you could download and install in any device you wanted even if the device is physically capable of running it (hardware). Not just the OS itself, it also has similar issues of availability for the updates. The updates usually not available via OTA (Over The Air) which means you can’t utilize your wi-fi or 3G connection to update your system in a similar way you update Windows/Linux desktop. You’d need to connect your phone and run the updater tool (which would download and flash your phone automatically). The need to flash the entire system just to apply an OS update is ridiculous, showing how premature the system is. At least from what I know, iOS updates may roll out in patches (except for major upgrade of course). I was informed that the unavailability of OTA update is the limitation by some telcos. That’s a lie. In my case, I own a no telco-lock, no contract LG Androphone. However I never got any updates from my telco, instead I’d periodically check for available updates from LG or online communities and get notified that way, which is very cumbersome and inconvenient.

This second biggest issue I found is the UI fragmentation. I hate it when Android phone makers keep overlaying the UI with their own. They should have just concentrate on the hardware instead of fiddling and tinkering with the OS. In other words they should concentrate on optimizing the OS for the hardware by perfecting the drivers and software-hardware integration. Google should never allowed these phone makers to replace the stock UI and make their own as default. Instead let the user decide what UI (homescreen) they would like to use. In some ‘extreme’ cases (like most LG’s Androphones) they even went as far as removing the stock UI completely. I’m not sure about Motorola because I wouldn’t bother to touch it (never liked Motorola since I was born although it was the first cellphone in my family) but I have a feeling that their UI would be equally sucks if they had it too. One of the worst vendor-made UI I’ve seen on Androphones is from Sony Ericsson that makes it feels like a Nokia phone (no multi home screen by default like Nokia Symbian phones). That is followed by Samsung’s TouchWiz. While most Androphone users praised HTC’s Sense UI, I prefer to stick with the stock UI.

Speaking of UI, I’m always thinking about the importance of having multiple homescreen. It is crucial to make the ‘desktop’ less cluttered in the similar fashion to multiple desktop (workspace) found in most Linux distro. For Android to be built based on Linux it is expected for it to inherit this feature to keep the good Linux reputation. Nobody has to go to the app drawer and scroll through it every time s/he wanted to launch an app if s/he can place the most used apps shortcuts on the homescreens. Homescreens also allow a user to categorize those shortcuts, which I think is a better categorization solution that categorizing them in the app drawer. I know some 3rd party homescreens allow app categorization in the app drawer but like I said let the user decide that later after they play around with the default UI for a bit. After all I don’t think people would like it if every PC vendor forced their own Windows themes on every PC they sell.

But all that doesn’t matter much to me as long as the benefit I gained from it is more than those flaws. I know most Androphone users didn’t buy the phone for for it’s tweakability and customizability, so does that not all iPhone owners bought it for iOS’ awesomeness. In fact I bet most of them would agree that iPhone is too restrictive to their liking. In a sense, once everybody starts buying the iPhone it would feel less special and less unique.

Now let’s talk about the most recent Android (phone and OS). Both Google and Samsung co-launched Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” (ICS) and Galaxy Nexus (see picture below) being the first ICS device. Galaxy Nexus sure looks cool but like I said above, it comes with flaws too. For example, the most basic needs I found missing is microSD card slot. Sure the phone has huge 32GB built-in storage but who’d immediately need that much storage? At least the iPhone comes with multiple capacity selection right at launch.

: Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the latest addition to Google’s Nexus phones.

Also I hate the curved form factor (see picture above). To be honest I’ve never liked the curvature like those ‘chins’ found on many HTC Androphones. It would only make the phone looks bold from a certain angle, making it pointless to be this thin. After all when we put it in pocket the force would be unevenly distributed on the surface. I’ve broken my phone while it was in my pants’ pocket before so I know well about the risk.

When it comes to display size, for me 4″ is the maximum size for a phone. However Galaxy Nexus comes with a 4.63″ screen. I don’t care about the high resolution (1280×720) and I think the argument that it’s to enable people to watch 720p video is also lame. I mean who’d want to watch 720p video on a phone? Definitely not me as I think it’s a stupid thing to do. If I want to watch a 720p videos I’d go for a tablet or even a netbook. I want all Androphone makers to stop making big screen phones like this. Sorry but making larger display than the iPhone does not make it better than iPhone.

On the brighter side LG just announced the DoublePlay for T-Mobile. It looks very promising because of its 2 key features. The first one is it sports a dual-screen display (see picture below).

: LG DoublePlay (a.k.a. LG Flip II) for T-Mobile

It is kinda disappointing that for a screen of this size (3.5″, which is the same as iPhone) it has a low resolution, at 320×480 only. Even my LG Optimus One also has the same resolution display, albeit at a bit smaller screen size (3.2″). Well this isn’t a Optimus phone so I guess that’s the reason.My only concern is since the word play is there this phone should give the impression that it is for gaming but for a screen with that resolution would make it feel underpowered. Just so you know this phone is powered by 1GHz CPU so it’s not that underpowered underneath though. BTW, speaking of gaming, I wish the second screen would act as a secondary display to show game stats like the one found in Nintendo DS.

The second feature (the one I missed a lot in touchscreen phones) is the physical keypad (see picture above). It is a trait only found in some older Nokia phones. Taking a similar approach to Nokia’s old E-series flip-phones for business users, the keyboard is the split-type one, which is surprisingly easy to type on (see picture below).

: Nokia E70 (image ripped from The Best Page In The universe by Maddox).

For me the haptic feedback of the touchscreen display is no match to the keypad’s tactile feedback. That touch and feel is irreplaceable and the most important thing is you could rest your fingers on the keypad without triggering/registering any keypress (the only tradeoff is you’d end up having a thick phone but for me it’s OK because I love the feeling that I’m holding a phone in my hand instead of holding a thin card deck). Couple that with the secondary display, it would be great if the smaller display would double as a separate numeric keypad when typing so that I wouldn’t have to press the Alt key every time I want to key in a number.

The biggest disappointment with this phone however (and probably with all LG Androphones) is that it doesn’t come with ICS although it is capable of running it for its hardware. Instead it comes with the older version of Gingerbread (2.3) as opposed to the newer ones. Yes, it an ‘old’ choice for an OS (and maybe bad choice too) considering that most other phones by this time are already updated to 2.3.4 or 2.3.5. Well LG has always at least one step behind all Androphone makers when it comes to bringing updated software. I know it perfectly as it happened to me many times already, being an owner of an LG Androphone (even the newer, more power Optimus-es than mine also came with ‘old’ Froyo instead of Gingerbread).

That said, I guess the last hope of my Android faith would be placed for ASUS Padfone or if possible I’d like to import Sharp/Toshiba Androphone from Japan! ASUS made some Adrophones to before, most notably the Garmin-ASUS series but I never wanted those ‘rubbish’ as they came with Eclair when all other phones already using Froyo. Sure it’s good as a GPS device but not as an Androphone. Actually there’s another promising effort worth noting where there was this Synapses Built-to-Order Android phone back then; great idea and supposed to be shipping this year but the effort seems dead now (even the website has been down for months).

[Interpost] Chromefox vs Firechrome: a new yet overdue browser war

By Halfey Halphstein | October 15, 2011 - 4:35 pm | computer, internet, interpost, post

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Image via Wikipedia

First of all I have to tell you there are no such browsers to begin with. C’mon it’s just a gimmick, a gimmick!

Just now in Google+ I stumbled upon an article about Chrome browser is coming to Android next week. Before we go any further I advise you to read my previous article about Chrome browser on Android. Believe me it’s worth reading it first.

Like I said in my blog post above, it’s not that I like the browser or it’s being great or anything but I think it would be ridiculous if Google, the developer of both Android and Chrome, didn’t port the browser to the OS. On the other hand I’m not sure if it will be available for older Android though since the article below only mention about Ice Cream Sandwich.

I can say the wait is finally over now (well, almost). I’ve been waiting for this since the very first Androphone hits the global market. To be honest I have never accepted the idea that Android browser “is a Chrome browser TOO” because it’s too restrictive and too dumbed-down to be called Chrome. The default browser doesn’t feel like Chrome at all if you ask me. Even mobile version of Opera feels close enough to its desktop counterpart, and so does Firefox. That’s why I’ve anticipated for a true mobile Chrome browser.

By the way I did mention the word “Fire” and “Fox” in the title of this article. Well no matter how much I’ve been waiting for this Chrome mobile, the Chrome browser itself will never be my default browser, at least until Google decides to let me freely rearrange the navigation icons. I’ll keep using Firefox as my default browser for a while or at least until I’m forced to switch. It’s true that Firefox has issues of its own but they’re too little if compared to the benefits I gained from using it. Chrome is completely out of my list because despite being open source too it doesn’t offer the same level of customization as Firefox does. For example I can rearrange the navicons in Firefox to my liking but I can’t do the same in Chrome (in Chrome icon rearrangement is only available to plugin icons). I prefer those icons to be rearranged as they’d greatly reduce cursor movement (at least to my browsing experience). Sure I could use gestures to navigate webpages but it works better on multi-touch interface than with a mouse.

And before the article I mentioned above I came across another article at TechRepublic that whines about Firefox which resulting me posting this in the first place. It was a raging article but thank Madoka this one reply to the article hits the nail right in the head. I quoted the reply below:

“First, I’ve pretty much stopped using Internet Explorer on all of my machines. I’ve gotten tired of the bullsh*t for lack of user preferences with IE, in as much everything requiring money for additional features that are free-ware with Firefox.

Core in that was Google’s use of the black background for their GGL Bar .. yeah…. that’s right.. GOOGLE finally forced me to use someone else’s browser permanently though its not their crap called Chrome. Google’s refusal to allow a user to select a color preference, and more recently their redesign to force page preview in the search results is what finally pushed me over the edge.

So entered the Stylish themes/scripts, and with Adblock I have now fully disabled that f*king preview … it was bad enough when an accidental click ANYWHERE to the right of a result would open the preview … but oh no, that wasn’t good enough for google they had to start turning it on when ever my mouse happens to just rest.. NO CLICK NEEDED, just RESTING in that “>>” boxed area… I’d had enough and Firefox did for me what IE could not .. set **MY* preferences back.

IE9 crashed every time I tried it (beta or release) due to its defaulted hardware acceleration. I mean how f**king arrogant of Microsoft.. you force hardware acceleration onto users without 100% compatibility, or without some routine to test it and set it to OFF if the test fails.. Would it have killed microsoft to build a simple test “can you see this page” after its started.. and if not (ie. a continuous tab reload or browser crash) leave the feature off … but not microsoft.. it knows all to well whats on a users system..

Then there’s the stupidity microsoft did with the Tabs and URL bar, and turning off the menus? And with IE9 you don’t (or didn’t) get the option to have URL & Tabs on two separate rows … you couldn’t drag to move, etc.. so what they told me is that the person that DOES use 8 or more tabs on a browser .. that user is not to be accommodated, we’ll only allow 3 or 4 tabs before crunching since NO ONE needs more than that… like no user ever needed more than 640k … closed minded stupidity is what fills microsoft these days..

I’m the user that wants their file menu .. and while Firefox disabled it, a simple extension adds it back, and the same for the status bar (stausbar4ever) and even after the initial dislike of Firefox’s URL/Tabs placement I could have reverted with an extension … but did finally see why they’d changed it, and the change made sense to me so I grew to like their change…

But at no time have I ever wanted a browser to hide behind Uni-Brow ..er.. Uni-Button .. the cog or other icon as the single sole top level menu … I like my Edit, View, Tools menus.. so I choose which I need and go into it for a function, rather than open the unified icon, then go to a menu, then go to a menu, then go to a selection … etc.. stupidity in the extreme.. burying menus under additional levels of hell, doesn’t endear you to the public. But even that was un-do-able.. with Firefox easily enough..

Where Firefox has seriously screwed up, is upping their Major Version numbers, when their release is NOT a MAJOR version release! Why they had to be so f**king retarded is beyond me.. even now they’re starting to back pedal … so in v10 they will finally stop defaulting extensions off or forcing them off/presuming incompatibility or give the user better options to control the upgrade with/without … all of which wouldn’t have been necessary when they haven’t changed a major functional issue from 5 to 6 … or so it seems from 6 to 7 … just slap a new number on it, with bug fixes.. real thoughtful … f*ing morons is more like it..

But the CORE of the reasons to use Firefox or Chrome are still there.. that because IE is such a closed programing platform, no one wants to build for it without the ROI ($$) … The extensions, adblock, firebug, stylish … ALL of which are free/freeware, and allow users to get around idiots like Google, Adware peddlers & ads that annoy (major push there was the last time an ad turned on the sound by default, as if downloading a 3 or 4 meg SWF/FLV file wasn’t bad enough).

SO.. while Firefox has issues… like that startup delay I take a hit for, are far outweighed by the benefits … like that its not tied to Outlook’s online/offline operation, and Firefox’s ability to get ride of google stupidity .. Its benefits made it my mainstay browser.. so much so that I actually selected the option to make it the Default Browser in my XP & Vista machines.. that’s something I’d NEVER done before … all brought on by Google, and exacerbated thanks to IE9.”

Really there are lots of things Google need to do to convert me into a Chrome user. They have to fix the persistent (unmovable) navigation icons issue first, among other things, and then we’ll talk. It’s not a bad browser by itself and offers better alternative than IE (and perhaps better than Opera too) but because of those issues I don’t think it’s worth getting and using it as my main browser.

On a separate development you might already read/heard elsewhere about Google is shutting down many of its products/services like Jaiku, Buzz, etc. and even their ‘department’ like Google Labs. What the… including the great Google Labs too? I mean, seriously? Alright, they decided “to focus on core products/services”. So what? One of the thing I love about Google’s corporate culture is they allow their workers to spend 20% of their working time for their own research. That is the purpose of having Google Labs in the first place. Most of Google products (both failed and success) are originated there thus it can be said that Google Labs is like the backbone of the company in the same way their search engine and ad revenue do to them. Therefore I wonder if Google Labs is shutting down, what’s the meaning of “being Google” anymore?

I don’t care about the other products/services being shut down but shutting down Google Labs is sad and unacceptable to me, and it feels like Google is breaching their own corporate culture that way. Maybe this is just another step for them to be a lesser evil than their “Don’t Be Evil, Do No Evil” but I think this would only taint their reputation further after the #nymwars controversy. And where’s the promised complete revamp of Blogger? Give it to us already, it’s been long overdue, you idiot!

Google Chrome browser coming to Android (digitaltrends.com)

[interpost] #Nymwars – The MMORPG+

By Halfey Halphstein | September 13, 2011 - 9:56 am | analysis, communication, humanity, internet, interpost, post

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I remember my earlier days with G+. Although I am one of the earlier people who requested for official invitation for G+, it was not until after 2 weeks since the start of the service that I got my invitation. And I got that invitation from a friend after begging him for it instead of receiving it from Google.

I’d like to treat G+ as yet another MMORPG. Alright it’s not the usual, generic MMORPG you’ve always playing but it’s RPG+, where the G+ is “Google+”. It’s what everybody is doing online, to play your own role. It’s not about where we play the game but it’s about how we play.

Of course in any game there are rules to follow. Google set that we have to use real name if we want to play the game. However do we really know that everybody is properly playing their role just because they use a real-sounding name? That’s difficult to say because Google did not make the real name verification enabled or available by default, which means everybody can keep playing as long as you use a real-sounding name. I’m sorry but I don’t buy it if you argue that the verification system is absent because it’s still beta.

For me why Google is doing it wrong is because they thought pseudonym promotes trolling. This may be true in a forum where a username is not well established and does not associated with your online presence. However that is not the case with a persistent pseudonym because it is closely tied with one’s online presence (read: ROLE). That kind of name is something that wouldn’t change easily because changing it would affect the user’s online persona everywhere s/he uses it. I think Google is confused between anonymity and pseudonymity here.

Google should understand that the internet is a different world than the reality. Although you may use it as an extension to your real life, it doesn’t mean that is the only way to use it. Many people refused to reveal their real names online, let alone their face because of the insecure notion associated with it. It’s more less as insecure as displaying your address (email address included) and your phone number on the web. It’s because knowing real names is always the first step in tracking real person in real life.

I maybe a self-proclaimed nymwars activist but for your information I’ve displayed my real name years before Google+ (or should I say since the Google Profiles is available). That’s because I believe people won’t gain anything from me even in real life, should they use the internet to track me. However I understand perfectly the reason people wanted to use pseudonym. Nobody wants to risk their life, safety, job, religious/politics/sexual orientation just for the sake of being online. Being online is supposed to allow everybody to play their role properly if real life restricts them to do so. Google+ could or should have been be safer, not otherwise.

Google+ nymwars rage on, pseudonymous celebrity users are immune (boingboing.net)
Anonymous vs. Pseudonymous (the-gay-bar.com)

[Interpost] #Nymwars: Google is missing the bigger picture

By Halfey Halphstein | September 12, 2011 - 2:37 pm | analysis, communication, humanity, internet, interpost, post

6 Comments

This is my first writing on the ongoing nymwars. I am a self-proclaimed nymwars activist and I’ve been on Google+ since the earlier days of the said “social network”.

I don’t need to elaborate in details of what the nymwars is. You can simply Google for that because they (Google) is still not that evil to block searches on that term. What I’m going to say here is why Google is missing the bigger picture in this “war”.

First, everybody knows that Google+ was intended to directly take on Facebook’s social networking dominance. That means it has to do things differently than Facebook. And not just different, they have to do it BETTER than Facebook. However by forcing users to reveal their real names in order to use the service they are in a sense worse than Facebook. They are following Facebook’s principle in the real name policy, except that Facebook is fine with pseudonym, unless you’re impersonating someone. The way Google implementing the policy is also very wrong in many ways because they’d just letting in anybody who use real-sounding names without verification, but locking out anybody with names they deem as fake-sounding. Those who are locked out this way would have to verify that the names they are using is real by using the simplest but most ridiculous method: scan a government issued ID or driving license, send it to them and so far all the account verified this way are accepted. Sure there are problems in the process itself like no warning/notification given to the affected users but the real problem is how on Earth Google would be able to recognize all government issued IDs? And how could they tell whether those IDs are fakes or not? This shouldn’t have been an issue if Google have a clear workaround for this but looks like they don’t because there are cases where doctored IDs are reportedly passed this test. Actually there’s no way for Google to properly check the validity of those IDs unless they are checking it with the government that issues those IDs but well Google has no right or authority to do that.

So Google played the game differently. They would never be able to check the validity of an ID but instead a government could check with them whether a certain ID is used in the service or not. All this thanks to Google’s declaration that Google+ is an “identity service”. Good job Google. You just told the world that you are now a private company that get hold on people’s identity whereas before this IDs are kept only by registration department or by their respective owners. How much different is that from Facebook’s ability to harvest user’s personal data? This indicates that Google+ has failed to take on Facebook because they are no better than the latter in handling user privacy. I’m sorry but this would only make people think that Google+ is “yet another Facebook clone” instead of being an alternative.

The reasoning behind the need for real names is also doubtful. One of the pro real name argument I always heard is “Google already know who you are so there’s no reason to keep hiding your real name anymore”. This argument is contradicting in many ways. If Google already know about us then why should they need our real name? Google’s anti-pseudonym policy also very unreasonable in many aspects because they extend it to persistent pseudonyms as well. Google has been around for more than a decade. Before Google+ people have been using their other services like GMail and Google Profiles (the latter being the core of Google+, also the flaw in the real name policy, as well as the culprit in the nymwars). When it comes to Google Profiles many users (myself included) have been using it since the service started. It didn’t have much use back then until Google+ is out as it is what integrates Google+ with other Google services like Youtube and Blogger. However Google should not forget all these years people (users) have been developing persistent pseudonym when using those services. Therefore by disapproving the use of pseudonym is like betraying the existing users.

Next thing we might find is we’d need to use real names for online games and MMORPGs. Anybody knows the game Lineage from Korea? I remember reading news (lots of it) about some dudes there got assaulted IRL because of game-related conflicts, most of it resulted from PK-ing (player-killing). I don’t do PK myself (because I don’t like the idea of other people PK-ing me) but it’s kinda scary to think that how things would be easier for PK ‘victims’ to look for the people who PK-ed them should online games/MMORPGs enforce real names. Now that online games these days are “more social” than they were before I’m afraid using real names would lead to more game-related real life crimes. My worry is not baseless as social gaming is well on the rise. Social games like those games ended with -ville that rely heavily on social networking are deeply integrated with the social network that hosts them so it wouldn’t be so surprising if we’re going to see people do gaming online for the sole purpose of socializing instead of roleplaying. Looking back at the unfortunate events happened to some Korean dudes I mentioned above, now I’m calling Google to rethink their real name policy.

Of course the best way to stay safe is not to get online but with being online is essential to our life these days can we live without it? We rely on internet connection for various reasons in a similar way we rely on TV for entertainment, the telephone for communication, and the house for shelter. That said opting out from such service just because there are other alternatives is not a viable solution. People are flocking into Google+ because they don’t like Facebook as they see the former as a Messiah of social networking. Please consider that.

Google+ nymwars rage on, pseudonymous celebrity users are immune (boingboing.net)
Nymwars: Thoughts on Google+ (emergentchaos.com)
Nymwars: A view from the trenches within Google (plus.google.com)
Nym Wars (Google+ “real name” rules) (jwz.org)
Dispatch from the Nymwars: Pseudonyms and science (boingboing.net)
Apples and Oranges (comuq.wordpress.com)
The Google+ Nymwars: Where Identity and Capitalism Collide (tigerbeatdown.com)
Superman vs. Google+ (neatorama.com)
Google wants to see your papers (macleans.ca)
“On Pseudonymity, Privacy and Responsibility on Google+” (excellent Nym Wars rant) (boingboing.net)

Tag Archives: Google

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[Not anime] A certain mobile device with the ’7′ moniker but doesn’t come with Windows Phone 7

[Interpost] Google+ finally allows pseudonyms? My ass! #nymwars

[Interpost] Faildroid (and why it’s no big deal)

[Interpost] Chromefox vs Firechrome: a new yet overdue browser war

[interpost] #Nymwars – The MMORPG+

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