Q: The opposite of Microsoft Derivation?

For nerds at least, the answer would be Google Integration (okay, it's a stretch, and barely qualifies as funny, too bad, I liked it).

Google today rolled out yet another pretty slick feature by allowing pictures to be added to contacts in gmail. That alone sounds kind of cool (not on my account yet, can't say for sure). Something new they have added that I haven't seen done before is the ability to suggest a new photo for people in your contacts to use. Just imagine the great conversations that could spawn: "Hey, Suzie, you should use this upskirt shot I have of you from last night at the bar".

Anyway, all of this leads me to a topic I meant to discuss some time ago. These features and apps that Google are writing are often nice (yesterday's announcements: trends, co-op, and desktop4 do not fall into this category). However, most of their new releases are simple incremental things, or stuff I find less than useful.

Instead of looking for new things, I would really like to see them do nothing but focus on integrating and tying together their existing services. I should have a single Google account, with varied levels of services and privileges. Why the hell should Blogger have its own login, or a separate publishing space even for that matter? Same goes for AdSense. The idea of a gmail account needs to go away, replaced by a generic Google account. That way, when something sweet like Calendar comes out, I don't have to tell people they need a Gmail account and have them stare at me like something out of V. Instead, I tell them they need a Google account. They nod their head and go, "Yeah, I like that search engine. I think I will."

There are some really killer integrations that a few of us have thought up. Imagine if Talk and Calendar were fully connected. When you were in talk and someone had a status of busy, you could hover over and see exactly what they were doing from their calendar, or at the very least how long they would be doing it (ceiling cat, you know what I'm talkin' about). Things discussed in chats, such as events, could be turned into appointments and added to Calendar just like that.

How about this, integrate Blogger, make it look like Google instead of ass, and instead of making templates something no mere mortal should try to create, use that simplified new Google Pages template creator to make the site.

Here's my favorite that I just came up with. All replies to my blog posts should be dropped right into my gmail account as well, as an unread, labeled thread. Then, when I reply to them, my comments can go directly back to the blog. Drooool.

Basically, I think Google has compiled enough good apps for now, but they could really make them unbeatable and draw in many more if they just spent the time to create some synergy out of what they have (yes, I used a marketing buzzword just now, but I used it correctly, so meh).