
Google to Retire Blogger & Picasa Brands in Google+ Push - ukdm
http://mashable.com/2011/07/05/google-blogger-picasa-rebranding/
======
gojomo
These are moves in the wrong direction: Google needs more distinctive brands,
not fewer.

While the multi-brand strategy didn't work for Yahoo, Yahoo had many other
integration/prioritization problems.

The fact that YouTube had a different, more-market-appropriate name than
'Google Video' was important for its identity and success. (Or is Google going
to rename YouTube to "Google+ Video", now?)

'Blogger' is a uniquely-interesting brand for them to throw away. If launched
today, the word would almost be too generic for trademark protection. But its
history practically grandfathers it in: its popularity was part of the
mechanism by which 'blog' became a generic term.

'Google Blogs'? Blah.

~~~
davidw
It's a bit older, but the book "Positioning" takes a pretty hard line against
"line extension":

> From the prospect’s point of view, line extension works against the generic
> brand position. It blurs the sharp focus of the brand in the mind. No longer
> can the prospect say “Bayer” if he or she wants aspirin. Or “Dial” for soap.
> In a sense, line extension educates the prospect to the fact that Bayer is
> nothing but a brand name. It destroys the illusion that Bayer is a superior
> form of aspirin. Or that Dial is deodorant soap rather than just a brand
> name for a deodorant soap

<http://t.co/0mPeBsf>

Is this still relevant these days? I think their argument has some merit.

~~~
stingraycharles
So does the book "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" (
[http://www.amazon.com/22-Immutable-Laws-Marketing-
Violate/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/22-Immutable-Laws-Marketing-
Violate/dp/0887306667) ).

It essentially claims that a brand should not try to be all things to all
people. Different brands, however, can. For a good discussion, see:
[http://www.codemyownroad.com/circumventing-the-law-of-
line-e...](http://www.codemyownroad.com/circumventing-the-law-of-line-
extension/)

Edit: I see the book is written by the same author. Probably no coincidence.

~~~
nextparadigms
Yeah, I think I've read about a dozen of his books. But there's also such
thing as "halo effect" (I think there's a book on this, too). Take the "i"
letter for all Apple products now. It works the same way.

The halo effect makes it so all the children products benefit from the main
product's influence, but it can also work the other way around, so they have
to be very careful not to brand a crappy product like that, because then it
will end up affecting all the others in a negative way.

It's also very important that they keep re-inventing themselves at least every
10 years (like Google is doing now). Because otherwise they risk becoming "the
product my dad used", or uncool like that. Who thinks Yahoo is still cool now?
13-14 years ago they were "the Internet".

------
bretthopper
I'm really impressed with the speed and scope of these recent changes Google
has made. Most giant tech companies wouldn't be able to pull this off. Could
anyone imagine Microsoft doing anything this big and fast? I can't.

~~~
nostrademons
Internet Explorer.

You could argue that this is Google's Internet Explorer moment. Disruptive
technology comes along that threatens entrenched tech giant's core business.
Tech giant is still lead by its brilliant, passionate founder, and still
filled with many smart people. Big long memo is sent out by one of the
company's VPs. Senior engineers are pulled off other projects and brought
together on one team, first to catch-up to the new challenger and then to
surpass it. The rest of the company is realigned to support their efforts.

Remember that Microsoft _did_ do something this big and fast once - they won
the browser wars. They probably couldn't do it now that Ballmer's in charge.
But in Microsoft's heyday...yes, they could.

~~~
wnight
It's important to note though, that Microsoft only accomplished that by
bundling it with their OS (which they'd gotten to near monopoly status through
a long series of dirty tricks). Then they tightly integrated its code to
prevent removal. They attacked alternative projects at every level from PR/FUD
to lawsuits. They used things like Active-X to create technology traps which
they wantonly inflicted on naive customer, totally against the customer's
interests. They increased lock-in at every step, making it easy to use other
program's settings but hard to migrate away. Just as we hear Facebook is
doing, blocking tools for reading your own data.

Google on the other hand, is offering services without any lock-in or
bundling. You can export your setting easily.

They're doing something much harder, and that we rarely see. They're competing
on value. If they want users to stick around they'll have to treat them as the
customers.

It could, eventually, usher in a new age in software - one where you didn't
just tolerate failure because it came bundled with your hardware.

~~~
nostrademons
I'm not entirely sure that IE only became successful because it was bundled
with the OS. In many ways, it really was the better browser. It rendered
faster than Netscape, its UI was for the most part cleaner, it introduced
innovations like the XHR, and it was even more standards-compliant. (Shocker I
know, but does anyone remember trying to do DHTML with Layers in Netscape 4?)
The reason I switched from Netscape 4 to IE5 wasn't that IE5 came with my
computer (the first thing I did with a new computer was to download Netscape
anyway), it was that Netscape 4 flat out hung when I tried to visit many
websites.

Microsoft _also_ did all this shady stuff with bundling it into the OS because
that's apparently how they operate, but I'm not actually sure this made all
that much difference in winning. It certainly wasn't what won _me_ over.

~~~
btilly
I hate Microsoft, but there is a lot of truth to what you say. IE 4 was
clearly better than Netscape 4. And IE 5 better still. Then they rested on
their laurels.

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Pewpewarrows
Great news, I hope the Picasa re-branding comes with a much-needed visual
overhaul (similar to the redesigns that came to Gmail, Calendar, etc). Picasa
and Google Reader are the last two remaining products in my daily use that
desperately need a visual refresh.

~~~
r00fus
If Reader were integrated heavily into G+, I would not complain one bit (more
likely, I would push more and more of my tweeting into G+ shares).

~~~
antrix
Definitely. I would love it if my Reader shared items made their way into G+
as shares.

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martythemaniak
It makes sense, but they should be careful with the blogger rebranding - it
_should_ be integrated into G+, but people need to be able to keep all their
templates and customizations.

Something like replacing the blogger toolbar with a g+ toolbar and adding G+
widgets (or gadgets or whatever they call them) would work pretty well.

~~~
callahad
From reading the article, it doesn't sound like Google is going to make major
functional changes to the products. Rather, the article suggests that Google
is going to rename and rebrand the products to be more consistent with their
other product names.

~~~
Lewisham
Yes, the individualized product names don't really fit with the sandbar.
Blogger was probably OK (it's clear what it does), but Picasa doesn't
communicate what it does well, and worse, the Sandbar calls it "photos" but
then you land at the Picasa page, and you're not sure whether it's correct or
not.

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mark_l_watson
I have blogger configured to use my domain (blog.markwatson.com) and I
certainly hope that Google does not take away this flexibility.

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paganel
Referenced from the article, I found this
([http://www.google.com/support/profiles/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#...](http://www.google.com/support/profiles/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1192471&p=public_profile)):

> We believe that using Google Profiles to help people find and connect with
> you online is how the product is best used. Private profiles don’t allow
> this, so we have decided to require all profiles to be public.

I couldn't find any such info (forcing user profiles to be made public) about
Google+, but anyway I find it a little bit strange coming from Google, or any
other company for that matter.

For crying out loud, at least FB gave me the option of my name not showing up
in any of their searches. That's why when I google my FB profile name it's
nowhere to be found in the first 10 pages, because I don't want the whole
world to know what friends do I have or which photo did I choose to represent
me. It's like giving the option of everyone who has access to the Internet of
entering my living room while I'm having a beer with my friends, at least this
is how I perceive it.

Or maybe Google+ just wants to be more like Twitter and less like FB, I cannot
really tell, either way, I won't ever use it because of this.

~~~
abraham
Google+/Profiles also has an option to not be indexed by search engines and I
believe the only info required for a Google Profile is name, gender, and maybe
age.

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pentarim
Am I the only one who doesnt see the direct connection between rebranding
Blogger & Picasa & G+ push? I think its more of a good timing for it because
everybody focuses towards G+ now. If the growth of the two services were
satisfying there wouldnt be need to change anything.

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CoffeeDregs
Nice, but please god let them fully integrate gmail and gapps accounts before
they do this. gapps accounts can't create profiles which means they can't join
google+...

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aaronykng
Sad to see the name Blogger go, it's just so much more unique than Google
Blogs. They're both pretty generic sounding names, but Blogger has a history
behind the name. Google Blogs is like...Facebook Blogs, Yahoo Blogs and
(Insert Generic Blog or Blog Host Name Here).

I've noticed Google+ imported my Blogger images though, it'll be interesting
to see how they incorporate Google Blogs from Blogger into Plus. I'll still be
sad to see Blogger go though.

------
ChrisArchitect
I wonder what becomes of the 'Blogger' name/domain etc. I'd say it's a pretty
valuable 'word' -- an iconic brand somewhat.

~~~
rufibarbatus
(DISCLAIMER: not terribly relevant, may contain nostalgia.)

It's not that big a deal that a big company is rebranding its products. I
certainly won't rant or protest that. But since I no longer have a blog, I
thought I should leave an _in memoriam_ here.

Their retiring the "Blogger" brand makes me a little sad. I made my first blog
there at age 13, and I learnt a lot about HTML and CSS over the following
years thanks to Blogger. In a way, Blogger was my BASIC. I eventually outgrew
its simplicity and scope, got a domain and some space (at a friend's mom's
server) and started mixing Blogger's templating code with PHP and Perl. That
site was my platform to learn code and its political implications.

Forward to high school, a few friends and I had a group blog which got sort of
popular among the student body. We had buttons pressed with the Blogger logo.
We wore it with pride. The implications of the web were gaining momentum among
our generation right about then.

I will miss seeing that big orange B around.

~~~
esrauch
Meh, I had a similar experience with geocities back in the day but it was
pretty much already dead to me.

With regards to the big orange B, why do you think they aren't going to keep
that around?

------
nikcub
not being able to extend this logic to also renaming youtube should be a hint
that what they are doing is a mistake

------
shuri
It's really nice to see Google with a clear direction, operate with
determination, going "all in", consolidate it's different offerings into
something that will, I'm guessing, be greater than the sum of the parts.

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kloncks
Would rebranding YouTube in the near-future make sense as well?

~~~
oldstrangers
No, because YouTube is a brand name that competes successfully on its own.
There's nothing they could name it that would have better name recognition
than YouTube already does.

~~~
abraham
Wouldn't the same hold true for Blogger then? "one of the top 10 most visited
websites in the world"

~~~
oldstrangers
No. Blogger has a generic stigma. You say the word blogger all the time, but
rarely do you actually think of blogger.com. Actually, I never think of
blogger.com. And we're talking about brand power/brand recognition, not how
popular the sites are.

~~~
abraham
YouTube certainly has a stronger brand but when blogger is referenced I only
see it either referring to a person who blogs or Blogger and the two are
pretty easy to differentiate. E.g. "a blogger", "the blogger" refer to a
person blogging vs "on blogger", "with blogger" that refer to blogger.com.

~~~
oldstrangers
Considering that your comment lacks comprehension, I think my point towards
'Blogger' being too generic a term is even more valid.

"Bob is a blogger on 'blogger' who blogs about blogging."

"Bob is a blogger on 'Google Blogs' who blogs about blogging."

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vishaldpatel
Okay, time for renaming fun: Picasa will now be known as Google+Photos and
Blooger will become.. Google+Globber! :D

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nrbafna
What happens to the name of the desktop version of Picasa?

~~~
wallnutboy
My guess is they'll make that a webapp instead.

~~~
SingAlong
Webapp? They acquired Picnik and is in Flash. So IMO, they might shutdown
Picnik and do something in HTML5 and javascript.

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UofFree
Next up Google Windows followed by Google Anti-Virus, who knows one day we
might have a Google president.

------
mkramlich
And remember kids: making these kinds of brand/logo changes are what earns
folks the Big Bucks. solving hairy concurrency bugs at 2am, dealing with a
site outage? $100k/yr. "managing brands", consolidating them, moving the deck
chairs around: many hundreds of thousands per year, sometimes millions. it's
not about how hard what you do is, it's about "impact" and/or how close you
are to the top of the org tree. :)

~~~
ma2rten
To be fair 100k/yr is still a shitload of money to most people.

~~~
mkramlich
good point. and totally agreed. however between a choice of making 1 shitload
per year, and making 10 shitloads a year, or 100 shitloads, I'll go with
what's behind door number 3! :-)

------
Hisoka
Does this means if I own a blogspot blog, the URL will change to a google plus
domain? I truly hope that ain't the case...

