Random thought: Google Reader was Tumblr before Tumblr was Tumblr

Google Reader used to let you share items that would then go to all the friends you had set up to share things to.  Isn't this like 99% of what Tumblr is?  It seems like if Google hadn't been dumb and tried to do everything through Google+, they could have basically killed tumblr before it even launched.  I guess I don't see how they couldn't have used the combined power of blogger/reader/private posts like g+ to construct something that's more conducive to sharing.  Plus, adding in the RSS power of reader allows people to share things that aren't in the ecosystem as part of the ecosystem.  You could use the blogger backend to do the publishing, and automatically link the RSS feeds to your circle of friends.  Since you automatically do stuff for people, they're likely to stick with you, allowing you to use the set of shares/circles/connections as part of the fundamental goal of knowing everything about everything.

Instead, things like tonight's fuckup, and the blogger/picasa size limits, and removing the direct sharing features of reader suggest to me that google really doesn't have anyone working towards sane integration, from which a social network would probably naturally arise.  The other option is that each project is so balkanized that it's impossible to make them work together.