You can say goodbye to the Picasa and Blogger names: Mashable claims that Google intends to retire several non-Google name brands and rename them as Google products.
This move is part of the larger effort of the search giant to unify it's brand for the public launch of Google+, Google's social initiative.
Both services won't disappear, because they are two of Google's most popular products. Instead, according to two sources familiar with the matter, Google intends to rename Picasa as "Google Photos" and Blogger as "Google Blogs". Several other brands will most likely have the same faith, altough our sources made it clear that Youtube would not be rebranded.
The technology giant closed Google Video, it's failed web video service, in May. This move isn't without precendent, as Google aquired JotSpot in 2006 and rebranded it as Google Sites in 2008. In 2007, Google aquired VoIP platform GrandCentral and relaunched it as Google Voice in 2009.
Picasa and Blogger were also Google acquisitions, altough both companies have been part of Google empire for far longer. Picasa was aquired in 2004 and Blogger (co-founded by Evan Williams of Twitter) was aquired in 2003 and is one of the top 10 most visited websites in the world. Altough this change would upset some of the existing customer, it allows Google to completely integrate both services into Google+.
Rebranding is in the next 6 weeks We have understood that the change from Picasa and Blogger to Google Photos and Google Blogs will occur in "a month to a month and a half". The date aligns most likely with the public launch of Google+. Mashable has been told to expect the public debut of Google+ before the 31st of July. This date is important because it marks the day that all the private profiles on Google will be erased.
It is strongly believed that Google doesn't want to have private profiles after the Google+ launch. Instead, the company will most likely encourage users who want more privacy to use Circles to curate their friend groups. This brand unifications will be the biggest in the companies history - it's never renamed a property as large as Blogger. This popular blog creation service has been receiving a lot of extra love recently.
This March, Google announced that Blogger will receive a major overhaul. We doubt many people expected that the overhaul would include a rebranding, though. Google+ makes perfect sense for Blogger and Picasa - they are both social products that improve as more people use them. It's also important to note that Google+ has a photo feature, a product that we believe uses the Picasa technology. It is also important to note that the Google+'s photo feature has no Picasa branding of any kind.
Article via http://mashable.com/2011/07/05/google-blogger-picasa-rebranding/
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