Well, two problems actually, but let’s take them one at a time. The biggest problem for me is that I have three different identities as far as Google is concerned – and they all have a different Google Profile with a different gmail address and it’s own login. I have one personal gmail account and two business Apps accounts and there’s no way to consolidate them. So how do people know where to connect with me on Google’s systems? How do I manage different identities and who gets what information?
On most social networks you have one identity or profile (although you may have multiple on Twitter), and you can then tell everyone what email addresses and contact information they can have, what types of information you’re sharing, etc. Google has gone about this issue from their point of view – every gmail address is separate and has it’s own separate profile. This is a problem from a customer’s point of view because they may have to login to separate accounts to change information they’re sharing or to connect with people. This may be ok from a personal vs. business standpoint, but you may also want Google to do the work for you and provide you with ways you can control your privacy without having to logoff from one account and on to another.
Why should they care? Well if they want to be a place where people socialize and connect and do more than email and write documents, they need a way for people to manage their identities – for customers to decide how many profiles and identities they have based on their needs, not on the needs of a programmer who thought email was the best unique identifier. This is strange too, because Google supposedly supports OpenID which is supposed to make it easier for people to login to various websites and services using one login.
Managing which of Google’s many products and applications are used be each profile would be beneficial too – instead of keeping one per email. Then, you could easily access your documents from your home email or whatever – because you’ve decided how the privacy and Apps should work, not Google.
We’ll have to save the other identity problem for another post.
What do you think about how Google views you, your identity and your profiles?
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Technorati tags: Google, social media, identity, marketing, business strategy, business
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