Apparently some of the buzz from the Edinburgh International TV Festival was identity. Google Ceo Eric Schmidt was asked a question about the need for real names.
He replied by saying that G+ was built primarily as an identity service, so fundamentally, it depends on people using their real names if they’re going to build future products that leverage that information,” Carvin wrote in a Google+ post. “Regarding people who are concerned about their safety, he said G+ is completely optional. No one is forcing you to use it. It’s obvious for people at risk if they use their real names, they shouldn’t use G+.”
Paraphrasing Schmidt’s comments, Carvin wrote that the Google exec also said the Internet “would be better if we knew you were a real person rather than a dog or a fake person. Some people are just evil and we should be able to ID them and rank them downward.”
You can read the full story at Mashable
Fred Wilson from AVC.com chimed in here with his take on Google + http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/08/google-is-an-identity-service.html