Silicon Shecky

Google Plus, the honeymoon is over. Is social Media any good when you have no one to talk to?

So there we go. Google is really bringing the hammer down on people who use Pseudonyms. Not only for Plus, but also for Buzz, and other Googley apps. What good is it though? People get pissed and leave those services. That means less ad money for Google. It gives people a bad taste in their mouth, so they stop purchasing things that Google supports. It can be a nightmare, especially in this day and age of Twitter and Facebook also.

A friend of mine who just left google plus wrote the following as their last post:

Dear +Bradley Horowitz

I really thought you guys had figured it out, but its pretty clear from the Google Name Policy that Google has once again failed at recognizing the basic tenant of social networking, namely that relationships made and maintained online are just as real as those made in real life if not more so because of the greater pool of finding like minded individuals. Clearly those at the top have never been part of a forum community, an MMO, or been to a spontaneous community event whether it be out in the desert at Burning Man, inside the track at the Indy 500, or just waiting in a line for a concert. Those who have understand that a chosen name is just as real as one printed, stamped and filed by someone’s parents.

Everyone else has already mentioned the safety and legal concerns of denying the protection of a pseudonym to a wide array of people who would be in significant danger should they use their legal names on a public, datamining, service, so I won’t belabor the point.

For Google, I only ask you to watch the numbers as people begin to walk away and try to understand the significance of having a network where no one is, because none of their friends can participate safely.

For everyone else, please repost on your own accounts, you can give me a mention, if you like, but don’t just share it, you never know when I won’t be considered ‘real’ enough for Google.

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Last week Facebook announced a new video chat powered by Skype. The question is, what does this mean for privacy?

Facebooks announcement last week of now having the ability to have video chats with friends was a big announcement. It meant that Facebook was doing something other chat systems have had for years. The partnership with Microsoft/Skype (that deal is still pending approval), is logical. The problems that Facebook can face though, have me wary of it.

First off, Facebook doesn’t enforce its own TOS, which has an age limit. We already have heard about cyber bullying cases. The video chat can take this to a new level. What about people pretending to be your children’s age, but really being pedophiles? This now takes on a different issue. There are 2 other things though that bother me about this.

First, encryption of calls. I haven’t had a full chance to play with the system, but nowhere have I seen any mention that the calls will be encrypted. Skype itself uses encryption on the client end, but Skype also is a P2P system, so the encryption happens at a person’s machine. Facebook looks to be a server solution, so are these call being encrypted, or can someone easily look in on them? I know some people are looking into this aspect.

The other troublesome part to me is a patent that Microsoft has from 2009 to silently record calls over a network. With the pending acquisition of Skype, it can be very easy for Microsoft to toss this technology in Skype, and the Facebook chat. think of it, your calls, your video, your “private” conversations, recorded without your consent, without your knowledge, and possibly without a warrant. This is not to say that they will, but the opportunity is there. Not only that, but think of Facebook’s stance on privacy. They have already said that they don’t care about it. People will get used to not having privacy. Imagine the information they can get from your phone calls.

I am not saying that these scenarios will happen, but they are possibilities. Some more likely than others, but they all must be taken into consideration.

A few days ago I wrote about A problem with Add-Ons and Firefox 5, along with no support anymore for Firefox 4. Now Firefox is really trying to commit suicide.

Firefox was a great browser. Yes, I say was, because it won’t last that much longer. Not with the path they have chosen at least. Focusing on the consumer market isn’t a bad thing. You will get people who will use Firefox at home when their corporations don’t allow for its use internally. Actively saying, “We don’t care about corporations,” though is akin to committing suicide.

Mozilla might not care about the corporate environment, but they do need to be aware of it. With hosted apps, and work websites becoming more and more prevalent in the world, to survive on a consumer end, you need to be. Heck, most of the web sites that people visit are done by corporations. Now with the accelerated pace of releases, and no support for the prior release, web designers will need to check more and more versions of Firefox against their websites to make sure that they aren’t broken by the changes. The amount of manpower and time will drive up the cost of web development. Sites will shut down, or the other logical solution will happen.

Sites won’t try to be compatible with Firefox anymore. They just won’t care. Chrome is passing up Firefox in usage, and Internet Explorer still has the majority of market share. Google just needs to support prior versions for a corporate environment, just like Microsoft has already started to jump at companies reminding them they won’t run into a lack of security patches. Heck, IE8 and 9 are pretty good from a security standpoint as it is.

Firefox thinks that doesn’t matter. Consumers will continue to use Firefox. No, they won’t if it doesn’t render web sites properly. The lack of foresight on Mozilla’s part is pretty amazing. First thing taught in retail and marketing is that 1 complaint, 1 problem with a client, can hurt you in a huge way, as they spread the word to avoid such an item.

Six weeks between releases is ambitious, and hurts consumers who’s plug ins and add-ons might now work with the latest version. Can new versions of the plug ins be ready in under the time it takes for the next version to come out? This is the other side of the death spiral Mozilla is putting itself into. Consumers love the plug ins. If they don’t work, what good is Firefox to them anyway?

There is still time for Mozilla to save itself. They have to support a 3 month old browser they put out. They have to show the world that they care about more than their own egos. They have to stop being the poster child for what can be wrong with open source, and get back to showing what is right with it.