Skip to main content

Google+ Drops Name Restrictions

Google announced last night on Google+ that they have removed their naming restrictions, preventing you from using nicknames and pseudonyms.So if you wanted to use the name "rustybrick" because you didn't want to use your real name, for privacy reasons, you can. If you wanted to use "GoogleGuy," you could.
This was how things were back in the day, very few people 10 years ago used their real names. Everyone used nicknames within the social network or discussion forum they participated in. Now, it is less common.
Google+ is now allowing for it because, well, I guess they want to solve their YouTube comments problem. Here is the post:
"When we launched Google+ over three years ago, we had a lot of restrictions on what name you could use on your profile. This helped create a community made up of real people, but it also excluded a number of people who wanted to be part of it without using their real names. Over the years, as Google+ grew and its community became established, we steadily opened up this policy, from allowing +Page owners to use any name of their choosing to letting YouTube users bring their usernames into Google+. Today, we are taking the last step: there are no more restrictions on what name you can use.
We know you've been calling for this change for a while. We know that our names policy has been unclear, and this has led to some unnecessarily difficult experiences for some of our users. For this we apologize, and we hope that today's change is a step toward making Google+ the welcoming and inclusive place that we want it to be. Thank you for expressing your opinions so passionately, and thanks for continuing to make Google+ the thoughtful community that it is."
So go get em!
Forum discussion at Google+ & WebmasterWorld.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Intel launches website to help gamers on integrated graphics get a boost in gaming performance

Integrated graphics solutions won’t get you far when it comes to gaming, but they’ve evolved to the point that you can actually get decent frame rates in relatively modern games with the right graphics settings. Looking to remove some of the guesswork for gamers on a budget, Intel has set up a site compiling the optimal settings for a bunch of titles based on your Intel IGP. To get started users must head to gameplay.intel.com and manually select their CPU. Intel will then show you a selection of games that are playable with your chip’s integrated graphics solution, or you can manually search for a particular title, after which you are presented with a screenshot of the in game optimizations and settings recommended by Intel. Intel doesn’t mention what kind of performance you can expect, nor what other hardware was used in their test system. But it’s still a good starting point for anyone wanting to find out what games are playable on a given IGP. While providing ga...

Why Google Will Rank Facts in the Future

In 2012, Penguin and Panda changed the relationship between SEO and search rankings. The impact felt by those algorithm updates, however, could be dwarfed by Google's current quest to judge websites by their factual accuracy and truthfulness, as opposed to ranking pages based on links. f Google researchers have their way, we may soon look back and laugh at the time when search engines ranked web pages based on link-driven popularity instead of factual content. According to New Scientist , a team of Google researchers is currently working toward a future where search engines judge websites not on the number of other sites that trust them enough to link to them, but by the accuracy of their content. Exogenous vs. Endogenous Credibility Google researchers are brilliant, so they use words like "exogenous" to describe signals that come from outside a web page, such as hyperlink structure. They use words like "endogenous" to describe signa...

Google Search Analytics Report Data Missing; Google Working On A Fix

If you are missing data in the Google Search Console, you are not alone. Many are seeing Google skip over July 28, 2015 data in Search Analytics.     Google’s Search Console, formerly Google Webmaster Tools, is having a data issue with their Search Analytics report. Data for July 28 is missing from the report, and there are widespread reports of the issue. Although not everyone is affected, I am able to replicate the issue across my account. If you scroll over the Search Analytics chart, you will see it skip from July 27 to July 29, completely missing July 28. I created this animated GIF showing the issue: Gary Illyes from Google told me that Google is aware and is working on fixing the issue.  Ref: http://searchengineland.com/google-search-analytics-report-data-missing-google-working-on-a-fix-226791