Right, but even among techies, how many care that Google owns Youtube? Youtube was the preeminent video site long before Google bought them. Its growth was or

Right, but even among techies, how many care that Google owns Youtube? Youtube was the preeminent video site long before Google bought them. Its growth was organic. Google can't afford for G+ to have organic growth. It needed the couple million early adopters it got within the first week if it was to have a chance, and Google is a trusted name for average users. That trust will be huge. You can't really compare the launch of a new social network to that of a flavour of soda. G+ is not pretty much the same as facebook, and it's not a commodity whose sales will be determined bybrand recognition and marketing. It's a service whose popularity will be determined by the level of engagement of its initial users and how motivated and successful they are in getting others to join. Saying "it's from Google" is probably a pretty big selling point, there.