I’m still working out what I think about Google Buzz but can already see some stuff about it that I like and dislike.
I’ll give it a bit more time before I make too many judgements but in the mean time if you’re interested in connecting on it with me you can find my profile here.
You should probably disable it until they get the privacy issues worked out. http://news.cnet.com/8301-31322_3-10451428-256.html
I sort of see it as a friendfeed/twitter but in google only. Google is smart to make something that social! it’s going to be very beneficial to them I think.
I like the way buzz integrates with email. Google should have done this years before people abandoned their email and went on-board social media.
I’m not a big fan. It’s like getting an email everytime somebody tweets something. Too much.
i guess it depends how many people you follow – its quite overwhelming to some degree but could be useful if they develop it well. Time will tell i guess.
Derek – you can set up a filter to bypass your inbox so that you don’t get email notifications.
It’s neither like friendfeed nor twitter. It’s more like sweetcron or stroytlr.
http://code.google.com/p/sweetcron/
http://storytlr.com/
Catch mine here: http://live.khurt.com/
Absolutely, time WILL tell. So far, I feel like this Buzz thing is what Wave SHOULD have been.
From a blogger standpoint, I think it adds some much-needed credibility to the Google FriendConnect toolset.
I have tried it as well. Not sure what I think about it so far. I’m thinking that it’s google, and I’m already using gmail, so why not. Everything google launches turns to gold, and it’s free.
The first thing I did was add twitter and my blog to buzz. This might drive more traffic.
It has many capabilities and makes for excellent communication for close friends and family, but like Mitch said there needs to be a better way to separate out public from private in your communications and even your integrated feeds and services. You can send stuff to public and private, or to just private contacts, but it is not very fine tuned and confusing for most readers, also if your Google profile is public I think everything is public.
You can disable Buzz updates from entering your inbox. Just add a filter that HAS label:buzz and do what you want with it, whether to archive (what I did) or to trash (what I do now).
Not a big fan. Nothing new in it. In fact it has a lot of privacy issues. There is no control as to how much of ur info can you show to people. It’s either you show it or you don’t.
It’s too bad the comments can’t be shared between the blog and Buzz (although that would be one big conversation – you’re already getting a ton of Buzz followers, Darren!).
Between the privacy issues with the iPhone/Android web app and the lack of a control to disable e-mail posts (a filter doesn’t cut it – Google makes both Buzz and Gmail, it should be a matter of a checkbox) it won’t replace Twitter for me soon, but if they can keep the Twitter-style autopost robots out it may.
To me it just seems like another Twitter that will just waste time that could be spent better elsewhere.
I did try to post some buzz but I found my profile was blocked which I am not sure why. I post my own photos on Flickr and use that on my profiles and I do include some links which point to my sites….
and Google blocks me., Sometimes I do think Google is bit stupid about this and don’t even tell me reasons on why they did that..
Proson
Seems like Google is playing catch up on this arena. Realistically, how many social networks can one maintain and stay active?
Google Buzz, rather like Google Wave, is an indication of a company in intellectual trouble. It’s another “stab” at what is going on. Google has been left behind by the social web, something it failed to predict and something which it is struggling to work with. Indeed, Google has effectively given up the social web to Twitter by incorporating Twitter into its search results. With Buzz (why did they choose the same name as Yahoo!?) you get a way of adding your Tweets to Gmail. You also get a way of adding documents to Gmail more easily.
But most people don’t use Gmail and most people don’t use Google Docs or Picassa. Most people use other services for email and document sharing. More pictures, for instance, are shared on Facebook than on Picassa. Most email is sent/received using Outlook. Most corporates won’t go near any online sharing systems or webmail because of security concerns and lack of audit trails.
The result is that Google Buzz will succeed but in a minority – web savvy, technical people (people just like the staff of Google). It means that in terms of the way they it is demonstrating its thinking, Google is increasingly isolating itself.
Buzz will almost certainly be popular, but its presence is an indication that Google is in intellectual trouble. It is constantly having to play “catch up” and is no longer leading the way.
More on this at my blog: http://GJurl.com/buzzwillfail
Well, giving a try doesn’t hurt. Of course, how much information you want to make public online depends upon you, so privacy issues doesn’t bother me. I think its another avenue to reach out to people and drive more traffic. How effective it will be, we will have to wait and see. But, definitely we can’t ignore it.
I actually don’t like it, and here are my reasons why.
http://www.jackcola.org/blog/66-so-i-just-got-goole-buzz-i-dont-think-it-will-replace-facebook
google buzz will kill twitter
hehe – love the variety of responses on this. It’ll kill twitter… people don’t like it….. time will tell!
@Bala : No it won’t. But you should let time decide. There are privacy issues there. You either share or don’t. I don’t think I like it. There are some things you share with all, some with a few and share a few things with only some and there are a few more in between. Let’ see for what it is worth.
Can’t say I’ve tried Google Buzz yet, I’ll wait a couple of weeks before I take a look, seems like another area the big G is going to take over?
One of the articles I read showed the feature of being able to track where you are when you send your message (and show that under your message). Seems like a huge privacy issue to me.
Well time will tell the future of google buzz but response to this post is very impressive.
I have used this Buzz..pretty awesome.just like twiter..:P
I have tried it, but still try to find out what should I do with it. I hope it will be useful enough and not only waste time.
I can see its usefulness – I’d rather not have updates in my mailbox though.
I am still testing this out as well!
I followed u!
how many tools do we need to connect and share with others? I would think that we have plenty to choose from now.
I’m wondering about this as a potential to re-market to past clients/customers. At first, I thought, “I email a lot of people who I don’t want to see my favorite lolcat pictures and He-Man parody videos… people I’ve done serious business with in the past and would like to do business with again.” But then I started to see how having their email addresses (which gmail saves for you) and the ability to friend them (which Buzz makes easy to do) means that I have a chance to connect with them on a friendly, personal level.
If I were to attempt to engage my customers as friends, could that possibly lead to more sales, or would it just get really annoying?
“how many tools do we need to connect and share with others?”
Seven.
Thanks for the clickable link to follow you … would love your follow back.
I’m interested to see how this evolves!
Best,
Christine Hueber
I’m too scared to try it. I hate change.
I wrote a bit about Google Buzz on Twitip.
My two cents after testing it out for a couple days:
If you comment on people’s “Buzz” that have a lot of followers, your email will get LOADED with crap! I deleted over 100 emails today alone because I’d made a comment on Pete Cashmore’s status (@mashable). Then I got a ton of updates from my own status too.
This may be because I forward all gmail stuff to my Outlook Inbox but STILL – clutter is very productive.
I haven’t play with it too much, but it seems to be like a yahoo messenger or icq type of app.
I wrote a post about this yesterday –
http://b6s.net/social-media/google-buzz.html
I actually think Google may have a thing there. Having used it for a couple of days now, I can see how they’ll have to streamline a few things first.
Oh, and if anyone wants to follow me on Buzz –
http://www.google.com/profiles/anne.moss#buzz
It will take a while for apps to maximize Google Buzz to make it a player
Google begins their next step in overtaking the world.
I wrote a blog post on this http://bit.ly/b3TQBn,
The biggest problem I see is it doesn’t appear to be idiot proof. Do you really want to share photos and videos with your friends using the same system that also stores your boss’ email address?
I’m still testing it out too… that said, I’m finding all these updates rather annoying. I setup a filter to just archive them.
I don’t like getting an email every 2 seconds.
Cheers
David Jenyns
Hey Darren,
Avid reader of your blog…
I don’t get?? Why do we need it! Isn’t Google a little late to the social aka Twitter party.
I do not need another social stream to follow and comment on etc.
Just my thoughts. I see it and added it, but am not using it. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and the blogs I follow thru iGoogle via rss are just fine.
Thanks…Mark
Mark Young – not sure if we do ‘need’ it – but I guess if the masses take it up it’ll be good to be positioned to leverage that like the early players on Twitter were.
It took me about 37 hours before turning Buzz off. One more aggregator = one aggregator too many. And it’s pretty distracting, I find, even with a “label:buzz” filter set up to by-pass the Inbox.
Just what we need. Another social networking site.
Google Buzz looks great and will use immediately – probably eliminate sidewiki – and Google Wave still ? and needs work!
Google Buzz might kill Twitter!!!!
Google Buzz is quite an amazing concept. Not only does it work like a twitter/facebook hybrid but you also have google search functionality, embeddable videos, and it’s an all-in-one stop shop to update all profiles.
Also, let’s not forget it’s built into gmail – i know I use my gmail account all the time and im finding myself definitely spending time “buzzing”
Like many comments on here – I had it on and then I turned it off…
Google is great at many things, however they may need to take a relook at this offering (design and functionality wise).
It has potential, but seriously another social site :|
First off, I think that it’s great that Google is iterating Gmail, and actually improving a product versus rolling out yet another one-off.
It does, though, beg the question: Is Gmail the new Wave, as I thought that Wave was destined to be the new Gmail?
Similarly, wouldn’t Reader be better nested inside this buzzable Gmail than in it’s current wooden frame?
In other words, Google has this somewhat head-achey culture of creating overlapping products (Buzz, Wave, Reader, Talk, Gmail, Chrome, Android) then giving cloudy guidance on where they’ll integrate, where they’ll silo and where they’ll make into a platform.
Similarly, as a consumer, partner, developer, wouldn’t it be nice if they could just be clear where they are experimenting, where it’s a product and where it ties into with a larger vision.
After all, between pivoting between labs, beta and NOT, they render these boundaries somewhat meaningless as demarcation lines, and generally risk teaching the market to only pay prolonged, serious attention when Google shows that THEY are paying prolonged serious attention to a given product, which doesn’t seem like a winning strategy for successful market innovation, IMHO.
Food for thought.
I am yet to try it. First I have to decide which email to use. May be I want to use it on a new email.
I agree.
I’m not sold on this google buzz either.
Darren,
Thanks for the personal response back.
Questions:
Which new apps do we attempt to leverage? Everybody’s time is limited.
Just because Google rolls is an app out, do we roll over and say thank you, because it is GOOGLE.
How do you chose?
Mark
I posted my initial impressions at the Atomicdust blog (http://www.atomicdust.com/blog/single/first-impressions-on-google-buzz/) and so far, have only found things to complain about (maybe I’m a glass half empty type of girl…). I know its only been a few days, so I’m hoping over the coming week I start to see some usefulness come out of using Buzz. Look forward to reading your thoughts!