Linky Followers

Hey everyone,
After reading different articles about Google getting rid of the Friends Connect Follower gadget (even though it's only going to be affecting those not on blogger for now), I've added the new Linky Follower widget.
I'm baffled as to why they are removing it - one article I read said that Google are "in the process of shutting a number of products which haven't had the impact we'd hoped for" - what?!!  Almost every blog I go to has that widget and some of them have thousands of followers, how is that not the impact they'd hoped for?  What did they expect?
They recommend joining Google+ and adding a badge.  I'd never heard of Google+ before this (maybe I live under a rock!) but it is basically Google's version of Facebook and in my opinion is not a suitable replacement for the follower widget.  It seems to be just a way for them to promote their own social network.  And in the meantime to get people to leave other blogging sites and join Blogger.
I'm of the opinion that if Google are making it unavailable to some, they may well get rid of it altogether in the not-too-distant future, also, I want people from other blog sites to have the ability to follow me if they want to, so I thought I'd add the other one now instead of getting in a panic later.
And hopefully by then I'll have got the hang of the new one!
For now I'm not bothered which one anyone chooses to follow me on, I'm just chuffed that people have chosen to follow me in the first place! :)

Thanks for looking!