Again, the standardization was required to keep up with the Google+ design - a direct Facebook competitor. Larry Page even went out to declare that all of Googl

Again, the standardization was required to keep up with the Google+ design - a direct Facebook competitor. Larry Page even went out to declare that all of Google will now revolve around 'social' - and we are beginning to see that already. The social features in Google reader are broken and crappy. While the same social features are absent from Gmail for now, the design persists, only because Google+ demands it.