Are you kidding?

The proposal isn't to force you to learn two names for every person, one for "real life" and one for when you're using a computer. That's a straw man.

Facebook began as a network for Harvard students, then island networks for other universities, and so on, and it only got merged into one monster network later on. Because of that history, it tends to be a social network for people to connect to school friends, family, work colleagues, etc. (i.e. people you've met in real life).

Google+ has much different beginnings.

Twitter seems to be doing quite well allowing pseudonyms. Same with Hacker News. You wrote "pseudonyms have no place in social networking" but what is Hacker News if not (in part) a social network?

An anonymous comment isn't the same thing as a comment under a pseudonym. People tend to use the same pseudonym (or set of pseudonyms) everywhere they go: people can get a sense of who they are, what they believe. They can even use that pseudonym when not online (e.g. Mark Twain never had Internet access).

"Real names" and pseudonyms are just handles. They're like variable names when programming. The computer doesn't care what you call the variables. Why should you care whether someone goes by the name their parents gave them or something else? Shouldn't that be their choice?

Except if I want to see if Steve Yegge or Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak or X has a twitter it is extremely difficult. In general you have to search on google for their personal website and hope that it mentions their twitter info on the page.

The situation is even worse for finding your friends if they have their username as Rogue7777; you can't sit down at a computer and determine if your friend has a hackernews or reddit account for example. That is fine for some communities where it is a feature that any random schmo can theoretically have the same visibility as Linus Torvalds, but that is the exact opposite of what Facebook, Twitter and Google+; you care foremost about who is saying it and want to listen to what specific people have to say, not hear what any random anonymous 13 year old thinks about copyright law.

The issue isnt "real names", its "name you are commonly known by", unfortunately that is an extremely difficult thing to determine by looking at usernames; in general people don't call their friends "texans for marijuana legalization" or "darth vader" in real life though.

  site:twitter.com steve wozniak

Not all famous people will have a twitter account, but if they do, it'll probably be in the top few results.

Those people who want to use pseudonyms, and have less visibility, can do that too.

I do not think a social networking site itself needs to distinguish between famous people, ordinary people, and pseudonyms. Link popularity and user-generated status within the social networking site will do that, and search is pretty good at picking up on those cues.

If anything, perhaps G+ and twitter need [better] tools that enable the userbase to ensure that a "real" Steve Jobs account can be given more status (let's call it whuffie), but Google and Twitter themselves do not need to take it upon themselves to unilaterally declare one account or another as special or reserved. That way madness lies. It will stress out the companies who have to pay employees to vet accounts. It will stress out the companies when they get it wrong or get into disputes over well-known identities. It will stress out users when they see network effects being overridden by corporate administrative fiat.

That search only works if their actual twitter page says that name on it, which is probably true for celebrities but almost certainly not true for your friends.

> Those people who want to use pseudonyms, and have less visibility, can do that too.

I think the point is that most people do not even realize the impact that going by Rogue7777 instead of their real name has. The people who post on HN probably do understand the implications of it; if you meet some random dude at a bar or a conference he will simply not be able to add you on Google+. Reconnecting with people you wouldn't usually connect with in real life is one of the things on the very short list of legitimate advantages that social networks can provide, and that is lost if you don't use your real name.

Generally social networks' rise based on what they don't let people do. Twitter's character limit is an oft cited example; under exactly the same type of argument that you are making, why shouldn't they let people write any length they want? Allowing 5000 character tweets wouldn't prevent people from tweeting 100 characters if that is what they want to do. Why shouldn't I be able to change my font and put autoplay music on my facebook profile like I could on Facebook?

These types of restrictions (and real names) are centralized overriding of people's feature requests because the company thinks it knows better (and it actually does in the examples above). You are perfectly free to buy your own domain name and write anything you want in any font with any autoplaying music and any xbox-live-handle-esque juvenile pseudonym you want, but when you use another service you are gaining the advantages of rules being enforced on other people in exchange to submitting to those same rules yourself. Maybe you don't care about if people have a red font on a green background, but that would be a worse experience for most people. Maybe you don't care if your friend is signed on as "SmokeBluntzAndPoundVag", but that is a worse experience for most people, even excluding the fact it would be difficult to find your friend and any behavior differences about someone who is signed in with that username versus their actual name.

> That way madness lies. It will stress out the companies who have to pay employees to vet accounts. It will stress out the companies when they get it wrong or get into disputes over well-known identities.

I think this is a demonstrably incorrect assessment. Facebook does a good job keeping people to real names (including dispute resolution that involves sending an image of your license if you have a name that looks fake), and Twitter does a pretty good job with "validated accounts". I don't think it is too extreme of a burden for either company; noteworthy celebrities and people whose legal name is Optimus Prime are extreme minorities and are easily manually dealt with with a minimal team of people.

It'd be a lot easier to find your buddy if he went by the handle Rogue7777 than his real name, Fred Jones.

That's only true if he told you that he signed up as Rogue7777, in which case he could just give you a link to his profile.

Twitter is not a Facebook killer. If you want to follow Lady Gaga's latest tweets (broadcasts), Twitter is for you. If you want to narrowcast photos for your friends to see, Facebook is for you. Then there's email / Skype / QQ / MSM for private communications.

>Facebook began as a network for Harvard students, then island networks for other universities, and so on, and it only got merged into one monster network later on. Because of that history, it tends to be a social network for people to connect to school friends, family, work colleagues, etc. (i.e. people you've met in real life).

>Google+ has much different beginnings.

Google's real name policy pretty clearly indicates that Google+ is intended as an extension of your real-world identity (like Facebook) rather than a forum for alternate personas.

>Twitter seems to be doing quite well allowing pseudonyms.

Twitter positioned itself as primarily a public venue for alternate personas. Kind of like HN, or pretty much any forum. I do not know anyone who actively uses Twitter to talk to their real-life friends. They use Facebook for that.

>Same with Hacker News. You wrote "pseudonyms have no place in social networking" but what is Hacker News if not (in part) a social network?

Hacker News is a forum with voting. It doesn't track any sort of connection between users, and doesn't encourage sharing of personal lives. I don't consider it a social network at all.

>An anonymous comment isn't the same thing as a comment under a pseudonym. People tend to use the same pseudonym (or set of pseudonyms) everywhere they go: people can get a sense of who they are, what they believe. They can even use that pseudonym when not online (e.g. Mark Twain never had Internet access).

I understand that. I fully support pseudoynm-based discussion boards like HN (and blogging under pseudonyms), and I am appalled at people who want to enforce real name use everywhere. Those are useful, essential to free speech, etc.. But Google+ and Facebook are not trying to build pseudonym communities, they're trying to facilitate non-internet relationships online.

>"Real names" and pseudonyms are just handles. They're like variable names when programming. The computer doesn't care what you call the variables.

Actually, Facebook knows you by uid anyway. I never argued that we should care what people are known as to computers, but that I should see my friends' vacation photos /location checkins/status updates under the name I know them by, not soccaluv18273084.

>Why should you care whether someone goes by the name their parents gave them or something else? Shouldn't that be their choice?

Because in social networking (or, since you have a broad definition of social networking, the kind of social networks intended to extend your non-internet relationships) I want to call people by the same name we use in person. So do a lot of other people, hence Google and Facebook's policies.

Just because someone is using a pseudonym doesn't mean they're using an alternate persona.

Google allows pseudonyms on almost all of their other services, which are supposedly getting integrated with Google+. How is that supposed to happen, exactly?

Twitter isn't primarily for alternate personas. Where did you get that idea?

Futhermore, what makes you think pseudonyms are for just for alternate personas? There are plenty of legitimate reasons for people to be using pseudonyms, both online and offline.

Many people are known only by their pseudonym (even when not online). How are their friends supposed to find them on a social network where they're only allowed to use their "real name"?

To quote you: "I want to call people by the same name we use in person."

>Futhermore, what makes you think pseudonyms are for just for alternate personas? There are plenty of legitimate reasons for people to be using pseudonyms, both online and offline.

In their personal dealings? That's a pretty weird edge case. I can't think of anyone that does that besides con artists. (Dissidents, yes, but again, Google+ is for extending your personal identity; your alter ego belongs on a Facebook Page or Twitter or Blogspot or Wordpress).

>Twitter isn't primarily for alternate personas. Where did you get that idea?

Because Twitter accounts tend to be a way for organizations and celebrities to push information. Case in point: http://twitter.com/#!/paulg is about Paul Graham the entrepreneur, the professional persona, not Paul Graham the friend/son. I don't live in the Valley, but I have never encountered anyone with an active personal Twitter account. (Lots of people, including myself, made one, tweeted a few times, and gave up because nobody else we knew was there.)

To quote you: "I want to call people by the same name we use in person."

Unless I am dealing with a con artist, that is usually a real name. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Google has an issue with normal first-name shortening/common nicknames). In what situations would someone be known to their friends and family by a pseudonym?

I've gone by the name "Otto" for about half my life. It's a nickname I got in college. Many of my best friends didn't know my real name for years. It just never came up. My mom is the only person who uses my real name, and every now and then even she slips up. So when I go online, I tend to use "Otto" instead of "Samuel". Not trying to fool anybody, it's just the name I go by.

There's nothing special about a nickname, is there? Or do you not consider those to be pseudonyms?

Now, Google+ might have no problem with this, but I can't use just "Otto" there. It requires a first and last name, I believe. Also, I can't be "verified" under the name Otto. I currently am verified with my real name, via the old Knol trick from Google Profiles way back when. I kinda like the verification, and so use my real name there. But it's weird, as almost everybody both on and offline knows me by Otto, not by my real name. And if I change it, I'd lose the verified checkmark. Kinda annoying, that.

I laughed when I saw this because MY Twitter account is @paulgraham and I get mentions all the time where I get credit for @paulg's writings.