Google+: Tools, Names, and Facebook 194
Several readers submitted stories about Google+ today. CWMike writes in with an article
about the lack of developer APIs from Computerworld
"Currently, external developers don't have any Google+ APIs or tools
to tinker with. A Google spokeswoman said, 'We definitely plan to
involve developers and publishers in the Google+ project, but we don't
have specific details to share just yet. Please
stay tuned.' The spokeswoman declined to say specifically if
Google+ will be compatible with the company's OpenSocial set of common APIs
for social networking applications."
Anita Khanna writes
"Facebook is trying real hard to block users migrating to
google+. Although the recently announced Google+ social platform is
still in private beta, it has generated enough excitement to have
Facebook making some preemptive measures. Shortly after the
announcement, Facebook made a peculiar change to their TOS that
resulted in the ban of popular Chrome extension Facebook Friend Exporter. Over the
weekend, another personal data migration tool, Open-Xchange, has also
been deactivated."
Finally, an anonymous reader notes that Google is requiring
real names for profiles, and may have already suspended some
users for using aliases.
Google Apps (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Google Apps (Score:4, Informative)
A Google employee confirmed [google.com] that support for Google Apps is coming. I think the more interesting point [venturebeat.com] is that it sounds like Google Apps users will be able to send G+ messages to people only within their Apps domain. So it sounds it will be a service sort of like Yammer [yammer.com] for Google Apps users.
Re:I Sit Here in Slack-Jawed Amazement (Score:5, Informative)
I trust Google vastly more than Facebook. I'm still not sure what, exactly, Facebook does with my data. Google on the other hand, tells me up front that they're going to datamine my information to use for advertising.
I'd much rather see ads for things I stand a chance of being interested in, than tampon ads for example. Additionally, Google hasn't had a major privacy issue (Buzz foolishness excluded) in 10 YEARS. Mark Zuckerberg was applying to Harvard 10 years ago, and Facebook has been much less than stellar with regards to personal information privacy.
So Google has a much better track record. This is, I think, difficult to dispute - but I'd be happy to read your argument.
Re:I guess I won't be using it then. (Score:5, Informative)
...but if they're requiring real names...
They don't, and haven't as of yet, they want your "common name". Here's their remarkably readable brief policy [google.com].