Google+

Google+ is luring me back to blogging. The moment I joined, my dusted existence over at the Picasa web and Blogger beckons me to reconnect. I would have forgotten about the inanities that I spread over time at these sites in favor of Twitter, Plurk and Facebook until the Plus came about. Why am I blogging now and why the hell am I blogging this from Multiply?

I find Google+ strangely engaging. Aside from the fact that they have a wider infrastructure base than Facebook (Android, Gmail, Voice, Talk, Picasa, Blogger, Docs, Youtube, just to name a few), the integration model that Google offers is tighter than I could have imagined.

I don't mind that Google is about to rebrand Picasa Web and Blogger into Google Products. In fact, I expect lots better things to come.

This idea of having a strong, individual service being able to stand on its own two feet, yet being able to function as a single product makes a lot of sense. The Google+ Android App that enables instant upload of photos is deemed to be a killer feature and is an example of how tight Google can integrate their mobile platform into their photo cloud-hosting facility.

I will not go into the merits of how Google Hangouts is probably technologically superior than the Skype-powered Facebook video calling feature, or how Chrome apps are slowing creeping into relevance. And while there may be some FB experiences that Google won't and probably never be able to provide, having essential services running shoulder to shoulder on a unified platform seem to offer a lot more potential and be worthy to spend geek time and effort on.

Of course, if you are sentimental like me and still value older technology like Multiply, I guess simple features like Cross-posting still makes sense :)