How google buzz is giving me an identity crisis…

By curiousillusion ( February 16, 2010 at 12:26 pm) · Filed under personal, social networks, ,

So I started hearing about google buzz last week, when I guess google started rolling it out – tech blogs that I follow started writing about it, but I ignored it. I’m one of those “jump on the bandwagon when most everyone has jumped off” type of people. Plus, since I wasn’t reading the articles, I didn’t know where to find google buzz, or anything like that. I have enough going on with flickr, facebook, and twitter anyway.

Then one day I opened up my gmail inbox and saw it… buzz.  Oh, so THAT’S what everyone is talking about… I clicked on it and I kind of dug it.  As a friend on twitter (@jerrytroll) put it – “it’s a bit like twitter-meets-facebook-in-your-gmail.”  I like that you can give your thoughts (ala twitter) but it’s not restricted to 140 characters… people can respond to your thoughts so it’s like a gmail email kind of threaded view and I don’t need to go to a new website, it’s right in my gmail. 

Oh and btw… my google account is my full name (at) gmail.  Which caused a problem in my mind right away - whenever I wanted to buzz something, it would use my first and last name.  Mmmm, not something I like doing.. I keep my full name private, for professional reasons.  Well, I edited my profile so that whenever I buzzed something, it would say Ari (initial)…  I figured, that would work for right now.

Until I went to send an email from my google email account.  You see, my gmail account is what I use for professional purposes as well.  It’s on my resume and it’s approaching that time when I’ll probably be using it to email people regarding job positions.  And when I email them, they really shouldn’t be getting an email from “Ari (initial)”, they should be getting it from my full name, which is on my resume.

Anyway, I only have 9 contacts that I’m “following” on google buzz right now.   And, much like twitter, buzz is more fun when there’s more people to follow.  So I start looking for people to follow when… another conundrum.

You see, my google email address is not something I give out to everyone.  Like I said, it has my full name – and I like to keep that private.  I don’t have it connected with the blog or anything that goes with my curiousillusion identity.  It goes back to my theory for a while ago – while it isn’t hard to put 2 + 2 together and come up with me, I’d still like to make it a little less easy.  So people that only know me as curiousillusion, they usually get my curiousillusion (at) ymail email address, because my first and last name aren’t on there.

And even though I had changed my name on my google account… I still think that they’d see my full name on the email address itself (if they added me as a contact, which you kind of have to do to communicate on buzz).

And yes, there is the option of me opening up a seperate gmail account, for non professional purposes.  I’ve really thought about doing it. But there’s issues with that too:

  • I’d have to come up with an email address (I don’t want curiousillusion (at) gmail because 1. it’s taken and 2. because not everyone knows about my blog and I’d like to keep it that way). 
  • I’d have to transfer all my contacts from my gmail address to whatever new address I come up with – and that’s a pain.  For everyone involved.  Then some people get confused, “which email address do I email to..”, some people don’t make the transition… sigh.

You see how this is messing with my head?  It’s one of those situations that makes me seriously wish that I could go by my full name everywhere on the internet, but considering my profession – I really just can’t.  And that leads to all sorts of problems in this world where things like google buzz are around. 

I know, someone’s going to say I’m overthinking this.  Welcome to my head. Rawr.

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  • I'm not to sure about Buzz. It fails on privacy and doesn't seem much better than Facebook and Twitter - so why should I change.

    However I am a big fan of Google Wave, and am finding lot of uses for it. But I need more friends to sign up to make it reach critical mass.
  • Quave
    You make my head hurt.
    (Where have I heard that before?)
  • I'm scared of Buzz. Seriously, there are plenty of ways to stalk me lol!
  • I'm intrigued by Google Buzz. It has the potential to be something great. BUT because of the privacy issues that you mentioned and that was mentioned in the previous comments, myself and a lot of other people are just not hopping on the bandwagon.

    A couple of solutions for you though;
    You can define different names for yourself in Google profiles and Googlemail. It's all done via account settings (top right-hand side corner). You can choose what "personality" to use as your email sender. Me, I'm set up in my Google account as Susie Q and send my emails as Susie. A small change, but important at times.

    In the same bit as you do this (settings-accounts and import) you can import your contacts from different accounts you have running about all over the place. Then you can email your whole list of peeps to say "yey, this is my new address!" if getting a new email address is what you want.

    That's my two cents. Google's very well aware how vulnerable their invention is so hopefully they'll be working overtime to sort things out!

    xx
  • Oh my goodness, you are a genius. I think you may have solved one problem. I went to the settings, changed my email to go out as my first and last name but it looks like on buzz it's still going to use just Ari. Which is awesome.

    I still need to figure out if I want a new email address, and if I do... what email address would it be? I wanted curious ari at gmail but it's taken. Grrr. So complicated!
  • I've never heard of google buzz. I guess I'm behind. I will have to check it out. Thanks, Ari.
  • The privacy #fail of Google Buzz was discussed at BlogHer today. Steps are included as to how to really turn it off, not just log it off. http://www.blogher.com/google-buzz-will-privacy...
  • Ah, I have never been a gmail fan so I guess I haven't heard of this but I can totally understand your dilemma. In starting my new blog, I have tried to be as anonymous as possible.
  • ari_b
    I had/have buzz and got mad at it. Something about it just didn't jive with me. So after a lot of work, I have finally turned it "off."

    I'm like you - of course - my email is my first and last name and I'm picky about where I let people see both of my names. I don't give out my email to "internet peoples" that often and that seems to help. I figure that there are enough ways to get in touch with me (twitter, blog, facebook, 20sb) that I don't need to give out my email addy. This way I can use my email for both personal and professional and control who can email me.
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