Google seems to be sneaking Google+ into everything lately. A couple of days ago it announced it would be integrating Google+ with Google Reader (which worries me a little bit given how much I use Google Reader to try to track down interesting stories to post about here), and TechCrunch also noticed that some users are seeing “Add to circles” buttons showing up on search results that feature blog posts or news articles.
The idea seems to be that if you find an interesting blog post or article, you can add its author to your circles and be notified whenever he does something else. Which sounds suspiciously like RSS feeds, albeit perhaps dumbed down a little for the average person who might have a hard time figuring those out. Which seems to tie back into the changes coming to Google Reader, too.
Is Google trying to “replace” RSS with Google+? (Or at least supplement it?) Could that be Google+’s real niche, rather than trying to compete directly with Twitter or Facebook? And will this get more people to bother using it? I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.
