Bye Bye Blogger

Google is stabbing the Blogger brand name in its poorly coded heart and will be dropping the brand as it moves to remake itself as it pushes Google Plus.

From Mashable here:

Say goodbye to the Picasa and Blogger names: Google intends to retire several non-Google name brands and rename them as Google products, Mashable has learned.

The move is part of a larger effort to unify its brand for the public launch of Google+, the search giant’s social initiative.

Blogger and Picasa aren’t going away, of course — they’re two of Google’s most popular products. Instead, according to two sources familiar with the matter, Google intends to rename Picasa “Google Photos” and Blogger will become “Google Blogs.”

I’ve tried to use the blogger platform a couple of times and always hated it. Too clunky and the site has chronic uptime problems and allows your detractors to falsely flag your site to prevent visitors. Google does a few things really well. Maps, for instance. Of course, search is still the best out there. Their video site was a huge failure, and gmail to me is marginally usable. With the rebranding going on with the Google+ push, I’m holding my breath, but honestly, I’m expect it to be clunky and still not as popular as facebook. Is anyone getting excited about Google+?