And when you think about it, why shouldn't the location of your friends not be just another layer in the maps app? Seems like a logical place to be able to find this kind of information.
But Google really, really wants to break into that market. Now what's happening is simply that they're sacrificing their less profitable services in order to force people to start using Google+, in an attempt to get over that network effect threshold.
Complete nonsense. Google aren't competing with Facebook directly at all! What they are doing is making Google+ the backend for any person to person interaction across their services. Instead of caring about massive amounts of features, they're just enabling all of their existing products, slimming and integrating them where possible.
If people can't be bothered to open an app and tap on the screen a few times then really nobody should be aiming at that market. Wanting a system where you just mash a button on your phone and it magically works is detrimental to actual useful features.
Like hell they aren't.
> What they are doing is making Google+ the backend for any person to person interaction across their services.
I.e. a competition to Facebook.
> If people can't be bothered to open an app and tap on the screen a few times then really nobody should be aiming at that market. Wanting a system where you just mash a button on your phone and it magically works is detrimental to actual useful features.
I can't even tell what that's a strawman of.
Since when has Facebook been the backend for interaction across Facebook's services? That's nonsense.
The closest Google+ gets to Facebook is that they both allow you to share content between friends. Google wants it to be the backend to the various features like Maps, Search, Mail. Facebook on the other hand wants to be the frontend, the site that you go to.
If I can't convince you then I'm really not bothered, Google have made it very clear what they're doing and why they're doing it. Perhaps view some of the session videos from IO.
When Google cancels the separate service and folds it into G+, as with Latitude, as with Reader, then it becomes the frontend as well. I fail to see a substantial difference.
> Google have made it very clear what they're doing and why they're doing it. Perhaps view some of the session videos from IO.
Perhaps start entertaining the notion that what people say they do (and especially why) isn't necessarily what they do (and especially why).