About to see if Google+ is wising up.
Yes, I actually have a Google+ account. I don't use it very much because the drones at Google Don't Get It or at least Didn't Get It at first. They wanted, it seemed, to compete with FaceBook and in one way made it bug-for-bug compatible by insisting on "real names" or as FaceBook called them "wallet names" - a term Google carefully avoided, but pretty much copied. "We're an identity service" they claimed. Yet those of us who have been on the internet for years have online identities that we've used for years, are known by, and don't have name-collision problems that so-called "real names" do.
Since I could not use my identity (I respond to "Vakko" and "Vakkotaur" in real life, as many who have met me can attest. I have also gotten snailmail delivered to me under such names.) I never joined FaceBook[1]. I joined Google+ mainly out of self-preservation. I could keep up with a few people that way and at least Google seems to pay some attention to privacy and data portability. But since using my identity put me at risk of them screwing things up - including my Android cellphone, I was stuck using my "real name" which I prefer not to do. It's not that I keep it any secret. I just am more comfortable on-line using a name that I chose rather than the one I've inherited.
Now Google+ is offering up a shortcut URL. jmaynard took them up on it using the default, which is fine as he always used his given name online, save for game-like environments where it wouldn't really make sense. I was given the same choice, but declined the given URL and, naturally, asked for the name I prefer, citing that's my online identity. If Google has any sense, I'll get it. And perhaps can then safely change the account name to what I prefer, rather than what some Marketing Director or other useless type once decided was right for me. Then I might use G+ more. I might even cross-post (LJ, IJ, and G+ would be three copies, each in a different place. That's Good Practice if one wishes information to remain available.) If not, well, then my G+ account can languish as it has for some time. We'll see.
[1] That its founder claimed, "Privacy is an obsolete concept." is another, perhaps more effective reason I avoid FaceBook - privacy breach after privacy breach evidently all by design and intent. NO.