Brief Aside

Is it just me or is Blogger (and a lot of other Google applications) about as intuitive as an alien autopsy performed by a fish and a polar bear?

I know I'm not the least adept at these things and yet the various forms of linking, joining, following, membering, sharing, buzzing, feeding, profiling, uploading, waving and otherwise interacting with all of Google's powers I find utterly bewildering.

I can see a friend's name who is listed as a "follower" of a blog then if I click on them they're listed as a "member" and it shows blogs they've "linked" and a separate list of blogs they've "joined". What the hell is "Google Friend Connect"? And why does it prompt me to log in to twitter or aim or google to message someone when I'm already logged in? Are these Google Friends Blogger entities? Google Buzz-like entities? Or something independent of both. I'm not sure I care enough to pursue it in earnest, my will has yet to prevail any time I've tried.

This current befuddlement is mostly with regard to Blogger to which I am admittedly new but it's not the first time I've felt this way. I think I have a profile that's affiliated with Buzz but I'm unsure exactly how to differentiate what's shared there with what shows up in Reader. My Picasa account holds images that are linked to in my profile and my blog (though I didn't put them there, they wound up there through some magical devilry when I thought I was just putting them here). And yet, from time to time, my profile and blog images show up as broken links. Looking at my Google Account Settings I see I have some information there which may or may not be related to Buzz, Blogger, Picasa, Reader or any of the other features I regularly use. I have a feeling I've created a profile for Blogger independent of the profile for Buzz but since followers, followees, linkers and sharers are all so intermingled I have no idea who sees what and what affiliation I have to have with someone or some blog to see who's posting the rubbish I'm looking at.

I'm sure a lot of personal information of mine is floating around out there simply because I don't know where I've put it. For the time being I don't much care. I may however want to rein that in at some point.

It feels like a lot of excellent products made by a lot of brillant teams who have no idea what the guy next to them is doing. It's ADD on a multi-billion dollar level.