I’ve gotten quite a few “adds” on Google + over the last week. First, let me say that I’m not ignoring all you other early adopters out there. Yes, I have a Google + account, but no, I’m not actively using it. I feel like I owe you an explanation for that.

Way back in 2010 when I went all in with a hosted website, I selected Google to host my “business” email needs. The Google Apps for Business account gives the average user a fantastic suite of tools to manage an enterprise-style email set up: multiple addresses, analytics, the legendary Google-powered spam filter, and a metric crapload of additional storage. These are all good things and exactly what I wanted for www.jeffreytharp.com.

Along with the goodness that is Google, however, comes the badness. With the beta rollout of Google+, I discovered that Apps/business accounts are not yet supported. Bummer. This means that in order to poke around with Google+ I have to log in with my old “regular” gmail username. Not a big deal, you’d think, but after spending the last year tweaking everything so it’s seamless from desktop to laptop to phone to tablet, the need for a second logon is a huge step backwards.

Technology is supposed to make out lives easier or better in some way. Until Google+ rolls out support for Apps users, though, for me it’s a little like a broken toe. It’s not going to kill me, but it’s enough to be ridiculously annoying every time something touches it. I’m not going to take a step backwards just to be an early adopter. For now Google’s go at a social network doesn’t integrate into my “everything else.” Until it does, I’ll be sticking with Facebook and Twitter… who manage to play nicely with my Google-powered email address. Too bad Google itself can’t seem to do that.