Google+ to Allow Nicknames After All, Sort Of [Google Explains Real Name Necessity for Google+ & What It Entails; Says Google+ Profile Deletion Won’t Affect Your Google Account]

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In case you’re one of the 20 million Google+ users, and that number is growing rapidly (how do you like them apples, Facebook?), then you’re probably familiar with some of the pain-in-the-behind features that come with your Google+ account. I’m referring mostly to real name use for profiles, which is something we have already talked about here on TFTS.

Now we have some updates for Google+ users that would love to use their nickname, pseudonym or stage name as a profile name on the new social network coming all the way from Google’s Bradley Horowitz, the Vice President of Google+.

It looks like Google is interested in changing its naming policy in the near future, although it may be a while until Lady Gaga will be able to have her profile name displayed as Lady Gaga. What Google will do however is to allow you to dispute the deletion of your Google+ profile, or at least make appropriate changes to it to abide by the current Google+ ToS:

- Giving these users a warning and a chance to correct their name in advance of any suspension. (Of course whenever we review a profile, if we determine that the account is violating other policies like spam or abuse we’ll suspend the account immediately.)
- At time of this notice, a clear indication of how the user can edit their name to conform to our community standards (http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1228271)
- Better expectation setting as to next steps and timeframes for users that are engaged in this process.

Second, we’re looking at ways to improve the signup process to reduce the likelihood that users get themselves into a state that will later result in review.

Third, We’ve noticed that some people are using their profile name to show-off nicknames, maiden names and personal descriptions. While the profile name doesn’t accommodate this, we want to support your friends finding you by these alternate names and give you a prominent way of displaying this info in Google+. Here are two features in particular that facilitate this kind of self-expression:

- If you add nicknames, maiden names, etc. to the “Other names” portion of your G+ profile, those with permission to view those fields can search for you using that term. For example: some of my colleagues call me “elatable,” a pseudonym I’ve used on many services, so I’ve added it to my list of other names.

If that doesn’t work out and your Google+ profile will get deleted then you’ll still be able to use other Google products that don’t require a Google+ profile. In other words, even if your Google+ profile gets deleted your Google account will still be usable.

Have you had any difficulties with your Google+ profile so far?

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