Google+, Identity, and Your Real Name

For many years, a storm has been developing in the hidden recesses of the internet, the darkened nooks and crannies that few dare to enter. The choice of whether to use a real name or a fake one has existed since the very beginning, and as the web became more accessible to the general public, most websites avoided the issue by letting the users choose whatever name they wished. It wasn't a perfect system, and invited quite a bit of abuse from mischievous troublemakers, but it worked out well enough that it's still in wide use today.

Unfortunately, that decades-old practice is finally beginning to show its age. In the nineties, it worked well because the internet wasn't yet an integral part of our real lives yet. People devoted themselves to online hobbies and games, but for most of us, the web was still a resource or a source of amusement. If you applied for something, you expected to get your response via phone or snail mail. Wi-Fi was a brand-new technology that hadn't been widely deployed, dial-up internet was still widespread, and many people didn't even have cell phones. Instant messaging was nothing more than a novelty way of chatting with close friends and distant strangers, and it was common knowledge to closely guard our personal information.

As the new millennium passed, however, the world experienced a massive wave of consumer-level digital innovation that completely changed everything we thought we knew about the internet. While Silicon Valley rode the fortunes of the tech market through its highs and its lows, however, the two extremes of online identity were soon to appear from the most unexpected of places.

How Facebook Changed The Meaning of "Privacy"

Privacy, privacy, privacy. It's a term you hear a lot nowadays, as the social networks fight it out for marketshare - and for user data. Certainly, personal privacy has always been a major concern on the internet, and is considered important enough by users that most sites voluntarily include privacy policies. Unfortunately, it seems like the meaning of privacy has changed in the last ten years, with the result being that people are no longer nearly as careful with their personal info as they used to be.

The old definition of privacy assumed that you didn't want anybody to see your information without your consent. While we certainly didn't want our friends and family to see our private details, we also didn't want our data to be used by third-party marketing companies - or even the site we were submitting that info to - for their own nefarious purposes. However, the social networking wars have made it absolutely clear that the definition of privacy has changed, and not in a good way.

Badges: A Glimpse At Google's Future

UPDATE (Jul 15, 5:30pm): Facebook is rumored to be in talks with news sources for a news-related feature of their own. Looks like I may have been a little early in saying that social news wasn't something Facebook could copy, but this just confirms my predictions of competition-fueled innovation.

Today, Google has announced - and released - a new Google News feature for US readers: Google Badges. Put simply, as we read Google News articles, we will earn achievement-like "badges" based on the subjects we read about, which can be shared with other users. It's not terribly exciting on its own, I'll admit that much. It might be an amusing side feature for those who still use Google News, though I get most of my news via RSS and Twitter these days. What's important here are the implications of this move, and what it suggests for future Google plans.