As usual, this does not include the material I wrote elsewhere, for Crikey, ZDNet Australia, ABC The Drum, Technology Spectator, CSO Online and the rest. That’s all listed on my Media Output page.

1. Right, Google, you stupid cunts, this is simply not on! This was my first critique of the Google+ Real Names Policy, and still the most widely read.
2. LinkedIn’s inadequate response to privacy stupidity, which was when they opened up people’s profiles for use in third-party advertising without asking first.
3. Twitter: a guide for busy paranoids, adapted from a piece I wrote for the NSW Local Government Web Network.
4. Tweeting your way out of Paranoia, a video of the presentation I did for the NSW LGWN conference. Yes, it’s related to the previous item.
5. 50 to 50 #9: The Space Age, and the companion piece…
6. 50 to 50 #9A: The Real Space Age. They’re about my personal experience of the Space Age.
7. Goodbye, Artemis, a very personal experience.

You might also like to check out my personal favourites from 2010, 2009 and 2008.

[Update 27 December 2011: Minor corrections to text and HTML markup.]

There’s not a lot to choose from this year. Most of my writing has been elsewhere. But there’s some interesting results nonetheless.

1. Right, Google, you stupid cunts, this is simply not on! I’m not surprised this is the most-read, but it simply wouldn’t have gotten the attention it did if it weren’t for the c-word. I’ve actually received quite a few compliments about this post.
2. I just don’t get LinkedIn, do you?
3. Follow Politics & Technology Forum people on Twitter.
4. Patch Monday: There are no NBN apps: Turnbull. Given that this is actually just linkage to the podcast site, I’m surprised it got this many views.
5. On stage for the Microsoft Politics & Technology Forum, being my plug for the event.
6. Goodbye, Artemis. I’m hardly surprised this one generated so much traffic. There was so much interest in the demise of this much-loved feline.
7. So LinkedIn is a giant Rolodex, eh?
8. Twitter: a guide for busy paranoids
9. And so begins 2011… in fear, being one of my rare personal pieces.
10. Google+ gives me grief, generally

And here are the 10 most-read posts of 2011 that weren’t written in 2011.

1. So this is human sexuality? This is what happens when you fill a post with sex-related keywords.
2. Why all corporate PR droids should be shot
3. HTC Desire to OS X tethering via USB, still getting hits despite being for an outdated version of Android.
4. Conroy’s speech to ALIA Information Online 2009
5. Jim Wallace’s pro-censorship lies and distortions. I’m surprised that this post in particular was pulling traffic, out of all those about internet censorship, because I don’t think it’s the best.
6. My new hero: Hideki Moronuki
7. Viocorp Future Forum: The Future of News Reporting
8. Note to “old media” journalists: adapt, or stfu!
9. Topic 9 to discuss Australia 2020 Summit’s government topic
10. Cheap fake tan and fat thighs? Snooki!

If you’d like to compare this with previous years, try these:

• Most popular posts of 2010
• Most popular posts of 2009
• Most popular posts of 2008
• Most popular posts of 2007

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. There wasn’t quite as much chaos as last week, but still sufficient.

The Patch Monday podcast ended up being published on Tuesday, and I delayed my return to Wentworth Falls until then too. And I ended up coming down to Sydney very early on Friday, on the 0609 train, to cover the Apple vs Samsung case in the Federal Court for ZDNet Australia.

So despite sleeping most of Wednesday, I was still short of sleep by the weekend. Sigh.

Podcasts

• Patch Monday episode 114, “Everyday malware is everyday criminals”. Alex Kirk, senior researcher with the Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team (VRT), explains that Stuxnet is probably not your problem.

Articles

• Shock analysis: most cybercriminals are stupid, CSO, 15 November 2011. Getting more mileage out of the Alex Kirk interview.
• No easy answers in Apple-Samsung case, ZDNet Australia, 18 November 2011.

Media Appearances

• On Tuesday I spoke about Google’s names policy and suchlike on ABC 105.7 Darwin with presenter Annie Gastin.

Corporate Largesse

• On Tuesday I had lunch at Quay Restaurant courtesy of NetSuite. We were also each given a copy of restaurateur Peter Gilmore’s book Quay: Food inspired by Nature.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: The Commonwealth Bank headquarters, Darling Harbour, photographed from Parkroyal Darling Harbour. Hey, if I'm going to stay in Sydney an extra day I might as well take a photo.]

On Tuesday I did another radio interview about Google’s stupid names policy, as outlined in my expletive-filled blog post and an op-ed for ABC The Drum.

This time the conversation was with ABC 105.7 Darwin presenter Annie Gastin, in the context of the full range of unusual names. Quite fun.

The audio is of course ©2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but since they don’t usually post it online here it is.

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets — and a remarkably unproductive week it was. I’m even posting this summary late!

In part that’s because the Tooth and Shoulder Situation lingered, but also because I reacted poorly to some negative comments on some of my writing. I’ll write more about that soon.

Podcasts

• Patch Monday episode 107, “Cyberwar: back to basics”. A conversation with Nigel Phair, a director of the Centre for Internet Safety at the University of Canberra.

Articles

• Google+: What’s in a name?, ABC Drum Opinion, 27 September 2011.

Media Appearances

• On Monday I spoke with ABC Mid North Coast NSW about Facebook and Twitter and spending “too much” time connected. As far as I know there is no recording.
• Also on Monday, I spoke with ABC Gold Coast about Facebook changes.
• On Tuesday I spoke with ABC 105.7 Darwin about Facebook changes.
• On Friday I spoke with ABC Gold Coast about smartphones and daylight saving.

Corporate Largesse

• On Tuesday I had lunch at Wildfire Restaurant, Circular Quay, courtesy of Bass PR. The event was a security roundtable presented by some of their clients, including Websense, WatchGuard and VMinformer, and analysts Frost & Sullivan. I’ll write something about this in due course.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: My first beer after nearly three weeks of illness and heavy-duty antibiotics. Much deserved. It's a Coopers Pale Ale at The Grand View Hotel, Wentworth Falls. This event actually happened the previous week, but I'm slow.]

I also did about a day’s worth of geek-for-hire stuff for some long-standing clients. That was primarily web development, not the sort of thing I detail here unless there’s something interesting to show you.

Podcasts

• Patch Monday episode 103, “Google’s real names a real disaster”. A conversation with Kirrily “Skud” Robert, about which I have already written stuff.

Articles

• Google+ is a goddam Trojan horse, Crikey, 30 August 2011.
• AVG 2012: your local pub bouncer made digital, CSO, 1 September 2011.

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

So, there’s a reason Google is being so stubborn over this “real names” policy. Google+ isn’t a social network at all, despite the fact that it looks like one. It’s actually the core of an identity service.

I wrote about this for Crikey today, a piece that includes Google chair Eric Schmidt’s confirmation of that plan and some observations that suggest Google+ is failing to reach critical mass.

The continuing bad press over what’s been dubbed #nymwars won’t help. Yet I suspect that Google’s need and desire to prevent Facebook Connect becoming the planet’s default identity service will override most concerns.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Schmidt has always been the go-for-profits guy. Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page is reportedly aware of the problem, although an informative post by Stephen R van den Berg says it’s unclear whether he’s being properly informed about the criticism. That post was written a week ago, however, so I daresay Page has seen at least some of the news reports since. And the other co-founder, Sergey Brin, has been notably silent.

It feels like things have come a long way since my original expletive-filled rant.

Oh, and thank you to everyone who said they liked the Patch Monday podcast on this topic. That’s especially pleasant given my fears over the rushed recording.

Google’s disaster of a “real names” policy was the subject of today’s Patch Monday podcast. How could it not be, after my own experiences and the attention that scored globally?

Australian developer Kirrily “Skud” Robert, a former Google employee currently resident in San Francisco, has been compiling Google’s name failures, so she was a natural guest for the podcast.

You can listen below. But it’s probably better for my stats if you listen at ZDNet Australia or subscribe to the RSS feed or subscribe in iTunes.

Please let me know what you think. Comments below. We accept audio comments too. Either Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

There’s been a few developments this week in my battle with Google over my name. More communication. And more media coverage.

On 18 August I responded to Google’s boilerplate email thusly:

Hi folks,

My full, legal name is a mononym, “Stilgherrian”. It has been so for 30 years. This name has been used consistently throughout that time on every official document, in every credit line in print, on radio and on television, in everyday use… everywhere.

Dare I say it, a Google Search will soon reveal that.

My only photo ID is my passport, and I am unwilling to send a copy because I have security concerns.

I can’t edit my name in Google Profiles to match my “real” name, because it won’t let me leave the surname field blank.

How do we fix this?

Cheers,

Stilgherrian

Google’s reply arrived on 20 August.

Hi Stilgherrian,

Thank you for your appeal. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

In order to help us in verifying your name, we would appreciate you providing any of the official documentation to which you refer that show Stilgherrian to be your name and not a pseudonym or pen name. This can include documents which feature FNU as the first name. While helpful to avoid impersonation, we do not require a photo to be associated with any submitted documentation.

If verified, we will update your profile name to be your mononym followed by a dot (.). We are looking into how to improve the process for mononyms moving forward.

Sincerely,
Brian
The Google Profiles Support Team

FNU stands for “first name unknown”, and it’s how the US government copes with mononyms in official documents like my US travel visa. Your mononym goes in the surname field, “FNU” in the given name field, problem solved.

Except that it looks bloody ugly.

And except that “FNU” and “LNU” are apparently how US law enforcement agencies record the names of suspects under surveillance before their real identities are known.

I have yet to gather any evidence for Google, because it’s actually not urgent and I’ve got plenty on my plate at the moment.

Meanwhile my friend and colleague Richard Chirgwin wrote a piece for The Register. And Information Week ran a story, 5 Reasons Google+’s Name Policy Fails, but they were too gutless to link to me. And in Germany, DRadio Wissen ran the story.

Please add your comments on the original post.

[Photo: Google Ice Sculpture, by Melanie Phung. Used under a Creative Commons BY-NC license.]

If you’re not yet at least experimenting with Twitter, the real-time social messaging service, you should be.

Suppress the corporate paranoia. It’s a lot easier than you might think. And while Twitter does get far more attention than its relatively small size might suggest — truly active Twitter users number perhaps 20 million globally compared with Facebook’s 750 million active users and counting — it punches well above its weight in terms of connecting with influential community members.

Twitter may not ever become the core real-time service used by the masses. Or if it does, it may only be for a few years. You only have to look at the last decade to see the then-leading MySpace surpassed by Facebook in 2008, just four years after Facebook was founded. Google’s launch of Google+ in June this year has generated plenty of speculation that the search and advertising giant’s foray into social networking will in turn wipe Facebook off the planet. Who knows?

There will always be some real-time social messaging service, however. Whether that’s Twitter as a stand-alone service, or whether we all end up using a real-time component of Facebook or Google+ or something that has yet to be deployed — none of that matters. The principles and practices of real-time messaging will doubtless end up being much the same.

Anything you might do with Twitter will be easy to migrate to any other real-time messaging system. The lessons you learn will carry across too.

Now some social media expert gurus (SMEGs) make a big deal about how it’s vital you get Twitter right. Silly beginner’s mistakes will destroy your reputation, they say. Well, that’s only partially true.

If you make a mistake on Twitter, sure, you’ll be slammed within minutes. But most of the criticism will come from SMEGs who spend their time worrying about such things wanting to demonstrate their relevance, or whingers with too much time on their hands. Just remember that it’s all a storm in a teacup, and while the storm might have sprung up within minutes, it’ll also be forgotten within minutes.

Take a deep breath, and move on.

Besides, the SMEGs are trying to sell you their consulting services. Of course they’ll make Twitter sound hard.

It’s not.

Twitter is just people talking to other people, where their conversations are visible to the world.

That’s why I prefer to describe Twitter as social messaging rather than micro-blogging. It’s not a one-way street. You need to listen as well as talk. Respond to the people who talk to you and, just as importantly, introduce yourself to people who are talking about you, or about matters that affect you. That’s how you slowly build connections.

But I get ahead of myself.

“You”? That’s the first key question. In the context of a local government, who is the “You” that’s talking with people?

Many organisations imagine that since their Twitter account is another “official” voice it should be run by the marketing department, or corporate relations. I think that’s a mistake. The usual result is that the Twitter stream becomes nothing but links to media releases, and the tone becomes cold and bureaucratic.

The best organisational Twitter accounts seem to be run by customer service. CSOs are already responding to the general public. They know what issues come up. And they’re usually across everything that’s happening.

The question then becomes one of choosing the right person or people to run the Twitter account. In general that won’t be the newcomer 22-year-old who’s got lots of Facebook friends, but the receptionist, office manager or CSO who’s been around for a decade and a half.

They key is finding someone with the broad knowledge of the organisation and its communities. Learning Twitter, as I say, is the easy bit.

That person then needs to be given the authority to tweet themselves, without having to ask for every tweet to be approved. Real-time is important, and natural language is important. Don’t make the mistake of one federal government department of having every tweet approved by a committee and scheduled for transmission. That way lies Twitter death.

Besides, do you get the marketing department to approve every sentence in every telephone conversation? No, you trust in people’s ability to say the right thing.

Make sure you identify the person operating the account publicly.

A human face always helps communication. Add their name to the Twitter profile, and link the Twitter account back to a page on your website that explains who is tweeting, what they will and won’t be tweeting about — for instance, they might mention road closures but not building approvals — and what their hours of operation are.

Of course in a large organisation you might want to have several people operate the account. In that case, tag every tweet with that person’s name or initials. Margaret Jenkins becomes “^MJ” or “-Margaret” or even “-Marg”. They’re the most common methods, but it really doesn’t matter how you tag the tweets as long as you’re consistent about it.

Another method might be to have the Twitter account be the mayor’s, particularly if he or she is a hands-on kind of person. If you do that, again it’s important to distinguish between the mayor’s own tweets and those added by the team. For example, when he was Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would sign the tweets he write himself with “KRudd”, while the rest were signed “KevinPM Team”.

I’d have gone for something shorter than “KevinPM Team”. On Twitter, space is always at a premium. We already know it’s about KevinPM since it’s from his twitter account. “KTeam” would work nicely.

You’ll also have to think ahead, and know what you’ll do with the account when the mayoral robes and chains eventually get passed on.

But what would a local government tweet about?

Anything short that people might want in real time, either because it’s live information they need to know now, or it’s of high value and you want to spread the word widely.

Here’s some examples off the top of my head.

Bin collection back to normal after industrial action. Bins still full? Phone NNNN NNNN to book extra pick-up. ^MJ #rubbish

Garbage truck breakdown. Bin collections in Lilyfield running 3 hours late, but we will finish today. ^MJ #rubbish

Jenny Smith Gallery: Photo portraits by Andrew Jones opens 6pm tonight. FREE. http://counc.il/466 #art ^MJ

Council meeting tonight 7pm Bullathinga Town Hall. Agenda at http://counc.il/468 ^MJ

Council agenda item 4 approved: $20k funding for new pet health centre. http://counc.il/467 ^MJ

Flooding closes Perkins Rd at Hangmans Creek. Will not re-open today. Divert via Bullhorn Rd. Next update 7am. ^MJ

Smithfield Library has 200 new romantic fiction titles. Borrowing is free. Full list at http://counc.il/454 ^MJ

Pensioner? Free cholesterol tests at Bullathinga Town Hall this Friday 8am to 12pm. http://counc.il/467 ^MJ

DA received: shop renovations at 127 Smith St. Comments close 17 Aug. http://counc.il/556 ^MJ

Next on stage at Bullathinga Park: Folk Off, Irish comedy folk trio. http://counc.il/546 #bullafair ^MJ

Spraying footpaths for asthma weed today in areas west of Perkins Rd. It’s safe for humans. http://counc.il/549 ^MJ

See the hashtags, the keywords starting with “#”? They serve two purposes. One, they add keywords to a tweet that might not otherwise be present, so they’ll turn up in searches. Two, by categorising your tweets with hashtags, you allow people who aren’t interested in art, say, to filter out those tweets.

Note that I’ve put the critical information at the front of the tweet, making it easier for retweeters to chop off bits at the end if they want to add their own comments. I’ve used a custom URL shortener to create short web addresses. Twitter does URL shortening anyway, but the yourls.org tools make it easy to set up your own shortener for added branding and a whiff of professionalism.

Note that every tweet must stand alone. Tweet often get retweeted out of context, and in any event people usually only see the most recent tweets. If you opened conversation on an issue then you need to close it again, and use all the key words on the closure.

Flooding subsides. Perkins Rd has re-opened at Hangmans Creek. ^MJ

I haven’t covered how you respond to tweets directed at your account, or how you do customer service via Twitter, striking the balance between answering immediately or directing people elsewhere for more comprehensive answers. They’re whole topics in themselves.

But for some good examples, look no further than Telstra. Despite their once-traditional reputation for poor customer service, Telstra is actually doing really well on Twitter.

So how do you start?

Register an official Twitter account, and also get whoever will be tweeting on your organisation’s behalf to set up a personal account. Fill in all your profile. Don’t stress about getting it 100% right, you can change it at any time.

Install TweetDeck as your Twitter client software, rather than using the Twitter website. It provides a lot more flexibility, and it’s available for Windows, OS X, iPhone and iPads and Android.

Start by listening. Set up search columns in TweetDeck for the names of the towns an suburbs in your area, and note what people are saying. Start to follow the interesting people in your area. Note the regular questions people have, and answer them. Note the misconceptions and correct them.

Follow other local governments, here and overseas. Think about what works for them and might work for you, and what doesn’t. Adopt what seem to be good behaviours. Follow a few high-profile tweeters and learn from them.

Tweet about a small subset of things at first. Choose easy, non-controversial things to start with, like letting people know when and where meeting are and pointing them to the documentation. Then add in new sets of tweets as you become more comfortable with the medium and can persuade staff members to contribute from their area. The fact that you’re adding more to what you’re tweeting about is worth its own tweet.

Don’t panic. Have fun.

[Image: Twitter bird drawing by Hugh McLeod.]

My expletive-ridden blog post about Google’s fucked-up “real names” policy and their brain-dead implementation has gone global.

While my editor at Crikey commissioned an article, To Google, we are data fodder, and I am an unperson, the story was picked up by an American political blog and linked to by The Wall Street Journal.

The post has been viewed at least 6000 times, probably many more. So far.

I’ve just written a lengthy response to the 127 comments so far. I do think that people who say “It’s only a beta” and “It’s just a bug” and “Well it is a free service” and “What do you expect with a weird name?” have entirely missed the point.

That, too, will probably offend people.

And now my work here is done.

Please add your comments on the original post.

[Photo: Logo from Google Developer Day 2007 by meneame comunicacions, sl, used under a Creative Commons BY-SA license.]

I knew this would happen sooner or later. Google, a data mining company in the United States, has the ignorant arrogance to tell me, a citizen of Australia, that my name — my legal name — doesn’t fit their scheme for how names “should” work. Well fuck you, arseholes!

What’s worse, this is how they tell you.

They suspend your profile, tell you your name is wrong, and tell you to change it.

Your profile has been suspended.

It appears that the name you entered doesn’t comply with our Names Policy.

The Names Policy requires that you use the name that you are commonly referred to in real life in your profile. Nicknames, maiden names, and so on, should be entered in the Other Names section of the profile. Profiles are currently limited to individuals; we will be launching a profile for businesses and other entities later this year.

Your profile will be suspended until you do edit your name to comply with the Names Policy: you will not be able to make full use Google services that require an active profile, such as Google+, Buzz, Reader and Picasa. This will not prevent you from using other Google services, like Gmail.

We understand that Google+ and it’s [sic] Names Policy may not be for everyone at this time. We would hate to see you go, but if you choose to leave, make a copy of your Google+ data first. Then, click here to leave Google+.

Listen, Googlecunts. This name precisely fits your Names Policy.

This is the name I’m “commonly referred to in real life”.

Did you even look to see if that were true before acting? No. Slack cunts.

Not only that, it’s the name that I have consistently used on every legal document, from passport to Medicare card, from property leases to witness statements, for thirty… fucking… years!

Oh, you’re worried about me putting a “.” in the surname field? That’s because I had to put something in there because your stupid fucked-up data verification code demanded that I not leave that field empty, even though that would be the morally and legally correct thing for me to have done.

What’s wrong is not my name. What’s wrong is your fucked-up Names Policy.

You stupid, stupid bastards clearly have no fucking idea how names work in the real world. For all your cleverness in building huge data centres to mine every scrap of personal information imaginable, somewhere along the line you’ve failed to Hoover up the fact that names don’t always fit into your neat Americo-centric first name / middle initial / last name pattern.

They never have, and they never will.

And don’t give me some bullshit excuse about how this is “unusual”. You’ve been in business for a decade. You’re one of the richest corporations on the planet. I know damn well there’s lots of good research on naming practices out there. Are you seriously suggesting that you build stuff without first reviewing the basics? Are you seriously suggesting that you’re incapable of dealing with the merely “unusual”?

What you also seem not to have figured out is how to open a conversation with someone about something as personal as their name.

You don’t fucking well start off by asserting they’re wrong and you’re right and they need to change. Show a bit of goddam humility, you cunts, and gently enquire whether things are as they seem. And then, only after there’s been a reasonable period for people to respond, do you start suspending services.

I’ve already written about how only fools would rush in and pour their lives into Google+. Seems I was right.

So here’s what I reckon should happen.

• Forward me a copy of the email from last week where you indicated that there might be a problem. That seems to have gone astray. Note here that I’m giving you the opportunity to lie and pretend that you did actually send such an email and that you didn’t simply act like cunts and suspend service.
• Apologise. Profusely. Your behaviour is offensive and you need to make amends. Yes, my behaviour is offensive too, but I’m the aggrieved party. Your first customer service challenge is to reduce my anger. It’s about time Google learned how to do customer service anyway.
• You fix the entire workflow for notifying people about name problems.
• For a start, that first suspension notice should offer more choices than just “Edit your name”. You know, maybe the name is right and you’re wrong.
• Actually, before that, suspension should not be your first action. Fix that. Cunts.
• Get rid of this stupid “must have two names” rubbish.

Now there’s this other whole thing about not allowing people to use screen names and other pseudonyms. That’s pretty fucked up too. But I reckon we’ve given you enough for one day, eh?

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets. Most of it seemed to be about Google+.

Podcasts

• Patch Monday episode 96, “Can Google+ kill Facebook? Twitter?” My guests were social computing and business futures consultant Kate Carruthers, Digital Citizens founder James Fridley, and freelance journalist and blogger Neerav Bhatt.

Articles

• There’s no way I’m handing over data to Google+, for Crikey.
• Online crime under-reported, under-researched, for CSO.
• Amazon AWS algorithms watch for cloud-based hacks, for CSO, which includes material from my interview with Amazon’s chief technology officer Dr Werner Vogels.
• Why rush? Let others find the Google+ privacy landmines, for ABC Drum Opinion.
• Quintet nations agree on cybercrime action plan, for CSO. It seems the same five Anglosphere nations that have been sharing intelligence since WWII still consider themselves a unit.

Media Appearances

• On Tuesday I was interviewed by ABC TV’s 7.30 for their story on voicemail hacking at News of the World. I wrote about that already.
• On Friday I was interviewed on the same topic by Adelaide radio 1395 FIVEaa.

Corporate Largesse

• While attending the AWS Cloud Tour 2011 on Thursday, I received ample food and drink at Amazon’s expense.
• On Friday I met with analyst Arun Chandrasekaran from Frost & Sullivan. He paid for the coffee and juice.
• On Friday I had another extremely long lunch with those unnamed people about that unnamed media project, but this time I managed to find my way back to where I was meant to be spending the night.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

[Photo: Kent Street, Sydney, photographed on Friday 15 July 2011.]

[Update 7pm: I didn't think that last article for CSO would be posted today, but it was, so I've added it to the "Articles" list.]

It seems to have been my annointed role this week to press back against the rush to join Google+, the new social networking service (SNS) from Google.

It all began when I posted the Patch Monday podcast on, erm, Monday. “Can Google+ kill Facebook? Twitter?” I asked. But as I discussed the potential success of Google+ and its strengths and weaknesses compared with Facebook, I couldn’t help but think…

I don’t want to do this.

Join Google+, that is.

I’d first written about Google+ for Crikey a week and a bit earlier. It was a cranky piece. I speculated that Google would have to come up with something pretty persuasive to get people to migrate from Facebook.

That of course soon triggered one of the usual, predictable comments.

sorry im not on facebook, i dont need to be, i dont have a mobile phone, i really dont need one, i dont have a GPS, i have a brain and know how to get around, hell, i dont even have a watch, i do have a job , im thankfull of that and i do manufacture and retail a product that everyone wants.

… said William Magnusson, who also seems to live without capital letters, apostrophes or the ability to decide when it’s time to end his sentence and start a new one.

I’d expected that. But what I hadn’t expected was much of the reaction to my follow-up Crikey piece, There’s no way I’m handing over data to Google+, and to a lesser extent my ABC The Drum piece, Why rush? Let others find the Google+ privacy landmines.

Now the headline to that Crikey piece wasn’t mine. I’d probably have added “just yet” or something, and indeed that’s why I toned it down for the ABC piece. But the lead paragraph of the Crikey piece set the tone…

The sheer stupidity of technology’s early adopters never ceases to amaze me. Facebook continues to be slammed for its dodgy privacy practices. But Google launches Google+, essentially the same thing, and the shiny-chasers are clamouring to pour in their most intimate information.

… and people reacted.

Some of it was clearly in response to my use of the word “stupid”, and thinking I meant that all people who use Facebook or Google+ were stupid. No, only those who rush in without considering the trade-offs.

But there were two threads to the reaction that surprised me.

• All Facebook and Google are doing is finding out more about you to show you more accurate advertising. What’s the harm in that? That struck me as naive. I pointed to the possibilities of (mis-)use by insurance companies or employers as obvious examples. People seem not to understand the imbalance in the power relationship.
• “They” know everything about you anyway, so what does it matter? Either be part of our internet-enabled future, or disconnect. That struck me as simplistic, as if this is an all-or-nothing thing and there’s only one way of doing it.

I have no neat and tidy way to finish this blog post. My thoughts are still open-ended. But what do you think?

[Photo: Google signage at the Google Kobi Günü event, Ergenekon, Gumussuyu/beyoglu, Istanbul, Turkey, on 21 April 2011 by Halil Gökdal. Used under a Creative Commons BY-ND-SA license.]

Google knows everything. Google knows what people like. They also know what they don’t like.

Here’s what Google suggested just now when I started typing in the search “people do not like…”. Me. Change. You. Obama. Vista. Cats. To think. War.

It’s interesting to compare this with what turned up in previous attempts to have Google explain human nature. Personally, I find it quite disturbing.