Sometimes....

Sometimes I just hate Google.    Long time readers of my books blog will recall some years back that it was a change on Blogspot (which required anyone commenting on a post to sign in with Google or Open ID and did not allow one to comment leaving just your name, e-mail and URL) that finally got me to move the books blog over to WordPresss.     I railed against Google at the time,   and was pleased that they after a time changed it back.     Indeed I probably would not have used Blogspot for this new personal blog,  if they had not made that important change.

While reading the zillionth or so person's observation the other day about how bad Facebook sucks,  I find myself thinking the other day about how much I dislike having become basically a pawn of a few huge companies online.    We all know how bad Facebook sucks.  particularly in terms of their privacy policy and their complete lack of customer service.  (Unless of course you are an advertiser-- a friend tells me that advertisers can get someone on the phone or to answer an e-mail;  my friend explains to me that Facebook users are not Facebook's customers.)    And the same of course is true of other huge online companies.    Those of us who use g-mail are definitely Google users, rather than customers.    This started off as a post about how frustrated I was at not being able to get into Google+.

You have to understand that for years my primary Google account has been based on a typo.   Way back in the MUD days  (if you don't know what that is, you are an online NEWCOMER who needs to remember her manners-- don't care how much Klout you have) I used the handle outofit.  Out of it.   That was how I often felt when I first began hanging out with some friends from Compu$erve on Timewarp  (telnet: quark.gmi.edu:5150).    To get to Timewarp I typed  that string at ! Unix prompt.   The Unix shell account I bought and accessed over dial-up from my local ISP was the only way for folks not connected to an .edu or a .gov  to get online.    So it was,  very early in my blogging career when I set up a new Blogger account  (long before gMail days btw) that I chose my old handle outofit.     I'd used it for a number of years and had not yet conceived my libdrone handle that became the one I try to promote everywhere and always.    Silly me.   I typoed  ouofoit  into the account creation box and quite failed to notice the typo before I submitted it.    For all of these years I have published multiple blogs while logged in as ouofoit@gmail.com,  an address I never gave to any of my friends.   And which I never connected to the web of a dozen or so e-mail addys I use,  all of which forward into the one gMail box I actually use to manage all email correspondence  drone@libdrone.info.

This last bit proved to be critical.    I received dozens of invites to +  from different friends at lots of e-mail addys.   And every time I clicked to join in the fun,  I got an error that + requires Profile and your organization is not allowed profiles.  (gMail on my own domains,  the free plan).     I finally added a profile and displayed my real name with my very old typo ouofoit and after waiting about,  voila,  I am accessing the Plus and busy finding and adding all my Facebook friends.      Time was I talked about how using different handle for different parts of your life enabled you to pursue even specialized interests with very different groups of friends,  who have little in common with each other and whom you don't want to mix with each other.     Google +   with its circles feature seems prepared to enable you to finally do just that with your primary social media logins.     How ironic that on Google +  I am a 4 year old typo come to life.

How many people can you really be?

Some days,  blog posts seem to just pop up in my mind,  flow quickly through my fingers and keyboard and onto the screen and twenty minutes later,  I am doing something else.   Other days,  like yesterday I type a title,  spend hours searching for an image,  make multiple false starts and never do get around to finishing.

I have been thinking a lot lately about identity and being online.   When I first when online on Compuserve, our "handles" were longer than phone numbers (mine was the very catchy, memorable 74220,741) although most of us had our settings to display our real names next to them online.   I remember being quite surprised when a friend mentioned to me that she was using a pseudonym on Compuserve.   Were people really whom they presented themselves at online?    On local "bulletin board systems" most people only used handles-- though honestly I never spent much time on BBS's.    In the early days of Internet discussion boards and forums (post Usenet, pre-Facebook) the use of handles was pretty standard,  although it varied a great deal as to whether the handles used were readily associated with the user's real names.  

I have friends I've know and talked to for years  (looking at Cardiogirl) whose real names I don't know.  I also have friends whom I've known by both their name on one site and their handle on another site-- and never realized that both were the same person.  (glancing at Lord Zod)   Facebook seems to have a policy of requiring only real names--  I've heard stories of people who have been locked out of FB for using a handle.  Although I have a friend who does.    And it was on FB that I was chatting with some folks about all of this name/handle, online-identity stuff,  and was a bit surprised at how vehement most of these folks are about only using their real names online.  Honestly,  it seems to me that life is sufficiently complex that there can be perfectly legitimate reasons that some parts of one's life are better conducted under a different handle.

Where do you fall on this?   Do you use your real name Everywhere?  or nowhere?   Do you use different handles for different parts of your online life?