Branded.

There are very few brands that I rely on for quality and efficiency. Apple, Google, and Ikea are the big 3 from which I expect (near) perfection every time. Ikea is quality furniture and other items for the home at an almost ridiculously affordable price. While some things are more expensive than others, everything is extremely high quality and very nice looking.

With Apple, their products aren’t what I would call affordable, but the quality and performance that comes with the Apple name more than makes up for the initially high price tag. I bought my MacBook Pro when I first started to go back to school in the Fall of 2008. I haven’t had to do a single thing, and my computer runs just as well today as it did the day I bought it. I have never said that about a 3 year old PC. Not ever. In fact, my 3 year old MacBook Pro runs BETTER than my mother’s new Sony Vaio, which is running an I3 processor.

And that leaves me with Google. I have used many search engines in my lifetime: Ask.com, Alta Vista, Yahoo, Bing, among others, and I have never found a better search engine that produces more accurate results than Google. Google has greatly improved their search engine over the years and has stayed on top of the competition. Google Translate has saved my butt a few times, and when I got Gmail, I was floored. Every email was where I needed it to be, I didn’t even know I had a junk mail folder for awhile. No spam, no missing emails, none of that. And then I was introduced to Google Docs. I had been using live Skydrive, but when I saw Google Docs it made more sense to use that. You can organize your files, choose who you want to share them with, and access them from anywhere. All of those products are great, but when I snagged my invite to Google+, I started to worry. The interface is great- nice and simple. The circles idea- genius. There isn’t a lot to do right now, having such few friends on Google+, but I can tell it would be pretty fantastic. Nothing real revolutionary, mind you, but still great. It was when I discovered they had released Google+ before they finished the iPhone app that I think was their biggest mistake. We’ll see how it turns out, but until they release that app I have a feeling it’s growth will be stunted.

—edited 7/22/11

After using Google+ for a few weeks, there isn’t much to it. I’m not all that impressed, and I found out that the standard setting for your photos lets people download them and order prints of them. The iPhone app is finally out, but there isn’t much difference between the app and the mobile site. Thumbs down, Google. The only thing that will save them is that people want it because they can’t get it. When it becomes public people will be rushing to join.