I hadn’t been following the news recently, so I was genuinely surprised when I saw “Google Buzz” in my Gmail dashboard today. My first impression is: this could work for me. But not as a replacement of Twitter. I rather see it as something to replace FriendFeed.
I have to admit – I never really got the hang of FriendFeed. While I want a service or an application that helps me to aggregate different forms of information streams, I don’t want to have to visit an additional site. But Buzz is integrated into Gmail which I visit a dozen times a day anyhow. And since most people I know check their Gmail or the iGoogle Dashboard regularly, this means you have real chance to create a lively discussion through Buzz.
In a way I think of Buzz as ”Google Wave light”. Buzz doesn’t have advanced collaboration features like Wave, but it enables interaction and easy sharing of content. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Buzz is based on Wave and maybe that just shows that we shouldn’t think of Wave as a separate product but as a developers platform for applications like Buzz.
Here is what I like and what I dislike about Buzz so far:
The good:
- Conversations: I can see everybody’s replies to a message. One of the things I don’t like about Twitter is that it’s almost impossible to have a discussion with multiple people because @-replies and #-tags are so inconvenient. Granted, this is standard message board functionality. But again, a message board is a different website that you consciously have to decide to visit. Buzz is part of Gmail.
- Integration with Google Reader 1: I can see what blog posts my contacts recommend from within Gmail.
- Integration with Google Reader 2: By sharing my own blog post through Google Reader, I can push them to my Buzz followers.
- Very good photo and video-integration. Again, this reminds me of Google Wave.
- Because all Gmail users are also Buzz users, many of my contacts are instantly connected through this tool.
- Groups: You can chose to only send a message or share content with a group of users.
The bad:
- Twitter integration 1: You can see the Twitter posts of your Buzz contacts but you cannot post to Twitter. That means, that if you reply to a Twitter message your answer can only be seen on Buzz. That’s a lame and very transparent attempt of Google to keep the conversation on their own platform. However that is not in the interest of the user and very short-sighted.
- Twitter integration 2:I think that in addition to the ability to post to Twitter, Buzz should also show all of your own @replies and direct messages. Gmail could then become message-central for all you inbound messages (except for Facebook).
- Non-threaded conversations: Buzz doesn’t allow you to reply to a specific comment, i.e. there are no threaded conversations. Why?
- Privacy issues:
initially, everybody can see with whom you are emailing most. See this blog post on how to fix this problem.Update (13 February): http://mashable.com/2010/02/13/google-buzz-changes/
I’m really curious to see how this will play out. I think everything is possible from massive success to dramatic failure. For me one of the main questions: Why wasn’t Google able to roll this out a year ago?
In case you want to follow me on Google Buzz – here is the link to my profile:http://www.google.com/profiles/timo.luege
What is your take on Google Buzz? Leave a comment and let me know!
I'm with you on two points in particular –
The first one, obviously, is the very real privacy concerns around Google Buzz. It is simply not acceptable for people to have to "opt out" of sharing information about who they're in contact with most frequently! And if you don't do so in the initial profile setup, it's not readily obvious how to go about doing so (tiny link on your profile page).
Secondly – "Why wasn’t Google able to roll this out a year ago?" It does seem that Google is coming a bit late to the party on this one, when so many people are already feeling Social Media Overwhelm. There would have to be a compelling reason to add yet another distraction, and I'm not sure that Google Buzz is offering that compelling reason. Apart from integration with your GMail (which isn't necessarily positive for everyone), you have to wonder what Buzz offers as a social media aggregator to trump, say, FriendFeed.
Fortunately it seems that Google is listening – at least where privacy is concerned. See: http://venturebeat.com/2010/02/11/google-buzz-privacy/
I suppose this blunder is not surprising for a company whose business model is that everything should be out in the open.
I remember seeing an interview (http://gawker.com/5419271/google-ceo-secrets-are-for-filthy-people) with Google CEO Eric Schmidt a few months ago where it became clear that Google doesn’t “get” privacy at a very fundamental level.
Quote: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, then maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
Hmmmh… Buzz turns a mail service into a initiatory social network tool. I for ever admired Google in view of their search habit. Nevertheless here I disagree with them. Privacy is in the present moment a majour concern. Though Google began addressing the privacy concerns, Buzz yet requires to overcome its burden. the people at Google seem to be playing with human informations. Google needs better reasoning about its continuous activities.