In an effort to unify its brand, Google plans to rebrand some of their non-Google names, for the public launch of Google+. Two of the biggest properties reportedly getting a new name are Picasa and Blogger.
Mashable is reporting that Google plans to rename Picasa “Google Photos” and Blogger will become “Google Blogs”. They go on to say that several other brands could also face a possible rebrand. It appears as though YouTube will remain intact, for now.
Apparently the rebrand will happen sometime during the next six weeks. Also around that sometime, you can expect a user revolt over the name change. As we’ve learned in the past, people don’t really like change, just for change’s sake… just ask Facebook.
If this seems like something off the wall for Google to do, it’s not. If you remember back to 2007 when Google acquired GrandCentral, a VOIP platform… Google eventually rebranded it as Google Voice. So Google rebranding services is nothing new, but we’ve never seen them do it with a property as popular as blogger, which Gizmodo calls “one of the tent poles of the Internet”.
How will users take the rebranding? We’ll find out sometime during the next six weeks, if the reports are accurate.
What do you think about the name change for Picasa & Blogger?