Earlier tonight I was browsing Hulu and I spied an ad for a new Google product called Hotpot. The name had a cute ring to it. So I clicked on the ad and was directed to one those awesome animated explanation videos. Hrm. HotPot seemed interesting so I proceeded to the site. 

After the somewhat low barrier to entry of recreating my name and uploading an avatar (why I had to do these steps is confusing to me), but then I was able to start rating locations in my town. So I rated a couple, then a couple more, and I'm still rating even more. Why? I don't really know. The interface is very utilitarian- it is big, boxy, and sorta bland, but most importantly it is very functional.

HotPot is the first product Google has made that has some aspect of "social" that has a stickiness factor to it. Wave was an utter failure. Buzz still irks me. But, HotPot, I can see using again and again as it is like the perfect blend of Google's big mono search box and interacting with some content for a specific purpose that is directly useful to me in a way that I understand.