[aylons]

You underestimate engagement. I guess most of these users already has a Google + profile, but are not engaged.

By integrating both services (specially the old social features from reader) they could make Google + a much more active community, overnight.

Instead, they decided to send their users to other venues. This is just dumb.

[tomkarlo]

It would be like adding Flickr (something like 30M) to Facebook (1B) -- the difference just wouldn't be noticeable.