> "And government IT - the least efficient kind! - has managed to solve this. Why can't the mighty Google?"
Because government has really one use for your name: the proper identification of a person for the purposes of the provision and execution of government responsibilities and services.
Google has a larger mandate, one where enforcing "official passport names" is not only inconvenient, but would also drive away adoption.
Not to mention, I have an English name, and a Chinese name. Only one of these appears on my passport, but depending on who I am interacting with I would very much like to (justifiably so) use my "unofficial" name. What is wrong with this? This is actually somewhat annoying for Facebook - I have relatively in Asia who don't speak English at all, and I'd like for them to be able to find me on FB... but there is only one canonical name on an account.
Google is developing a social system - a social system by the very nature of human identity cannot just have "passport names".
As I've said before, Facebook beat MySpace because it uses "real names". It's a lot easier to discover people you know, and that drives adoption. Google+ has to copy them, if they want to win the masses over.
They might be better off letting you have several, privately linked identities. For example, I could have friends under my "wisty" account, and friends under my real name. But they are best waiting until the muggles have already created great name accounts, and hooked up with their high-school semi-friends.
Once google is on near-equal terms with facebook, they can allow handles as well as real names. You could just move your "internet friends" circle over to your handle, and leave your "school friends" circle on your real name account. But until they have everyone's real name, this would be a poor business decision.
Because government has really one use for your name: the proper identification of a person for the purposes of the provision and execution of government responsibilities and services.
Google has a larger mandate, one where enforcing "official passport names" is not only inconvenient, but would also drive away adoption.
Not to mention, I have an English name, and a Chinese name. Only one of these appears on my passport, but depending on who I am interacting with I would very much like to (justifiably so) use my "unofficial" name. What is wrong with this? This is actually somewhat annoying for Facebook - I have relatively in Asia who don't speak English at all, and I'd like for them to be able to find me on FB... but there is only one canonical name on an account.
Google is developing a social system - a social system by the very nature of human identity cannot just have "passport names".