Well, I've been playing around with Buzz for a few hours, and it's driving me nuts. The most annoying thing that I've found with it so far is that it just dumps notifications into my Gmail inbox as well as into the Buzz folder. What genius at Google thought that was a good idea? I see a post on Twitter, then I see the same thing again in my inbox, and then I see it for the third time in the Buzz folder. This is not sensible. Yes, I can turn off the Twitter feed, but that's not exactly the point. It's the Google, for reasons best known only to themselves, seems to think it's a good idea.
I've always been very ambivalent about Google - it's a superb resource, innovative, creative and so on, but there is another side to the coin. They stifle development, they poke their noses into everything, they think that they know best, and they're rubbish at social media. I wasn't impressed with Wave - and after the initial launch the interest in it seems to have died down, and I'm not particularly impressed with this either. The mobile option, while interesting does also have concerns for me - I was able to track someone directly down to a specific location because they were using it - not just a rough location, but to a particular house number in a specific road.
I was also taken aback when Buzz informed me about the people I was following. Hang on a moment! When I want to follow someone, I will tell the application thanks very much - not the other way around. Another problem that's surfaced is the privacy flaw. Because Buzz automatically sets all this up, AND by default makes it public it's therefore possible to go into a profile and take a look to see who they email and chat with the most. Talk a lot to a competitor? How about a secret girl/boy friend? That actually might not be that secret any more.
Google is going to whine on about how that can be changed, and yes it can, except that it's not intuitive. Start by going to your profile page in Google - you'll find it at http://www.google.com/profiles/your_name when you're signed out of the system, and see what it says about you. If you're happy, fine. If you want to change it though, you need to go in and edit your profile and particularly untick the 'Display the list of people I'm following and people following me' box. That this is necessary is once again everso slightly worrying.
It's clear to me that Google simply doesn't properly understand social media. What Google understands is using anything and everything they can to extend their reach into the lives of as many people who use the internet as possible. Buzz is simply another incarnation of this. A good social media product is designed to make my life easier, but that's the very last thing that Buzz does.
Luckily, if you want to turn Buzz off, you can do. Simply scroll down to the bottom of your Buzz or email page and look below the message that tells you how much space you're using. There will be an option there called 'Turn off Buzz'. It's a toggle, so you can always turn it back on again if you need to.
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I've always been very ambivalent about Google - it's a superb resource, innovative, creative and so on, but there is another side to the coin. They stifle development, they poke their noses into everything, they think that they know best, and they're rubbish at social media. I wasn't impressed with Wave - and after the initial launch the interest in it seems to have died down, and I'm not particularly impressed with this either. The mobile option, while interesting does also have concerns for me - I was able to track someone directly down to a specific location because they were using it - not just a rough location, but to a particular house number in a specific road.
I was also taken aback when Buzz informed me about the people I was following. Hang on a moment! When I want to follow someone, I will tell the application thanks very much - not the other way around. Another problem that's surfaced is the privacy flaw. Because Buzz automatically sets all this up, AND by default makes it public it's therefore possible to go into a profile and take a look to see who they email and chat with the most. Talk a lot to a competitor? How about a secret girl/boy friend? That actually might not be that secret any more.
Google is going to whine on about how that can be changed, and yes it can, except that it's not intuitive. Start by going to your profile page in Google - you'll find it at http://www.google.com/profiles/your_name when you're signed out of the system, and see what it says about you. If you're happy, fine. If you want to change it though, you need to go in and edit your profile and particularly untick the 'Display the list of people I'm following and people following me' box. That this is necessary is once again everso slightly worrying.
It's clear to me that Google simply doesn't properly understand social media. What Google understands is using anything and everything they can to extend their reach into the lives of as many people who use the internet as possible. Buzz is simply another incarnation of this. A good social media product is designed to make my life easier, but that's the very last thing that Buzz does.
Luckily, if you want to turn Buzz off, you can do. Simply scroll down to the bottom of your Buzz or email page and look below the message that tells you how much space you're using. There will be an option there called 'Turn off Buzz'. It's a toggle, so you can always turn it back on again if you need to.
For a librarian, you aren't very objective. Predicting that Google will "whine" in their response and complaining that you could track someone's location because they enabled a feature that, you guessed it, posts their location makes you come off as rather uneducated. Perhaps you should write your posts and then go back and reread them before publishing.
Posted by: Joe | February 11, 2010 at 11:48 AM
Love how sites thing the default should be 'we going to share everything' and it's up to you to figure out how not to, rather than the other way around.
I'm undecided on Buzz so far. Seems like a kind of halfway house between gTalk and Wave in some respects.
I can see potential, if not a need, for it.
Posted by: scott | February 11, 2010 at 11:58 AM
Thanks 'Joe' (your comments would be taken more seriously if you were prepared to actually say who you are), but I'm not particularly here to be objective. It's a blog, and it's my opinion. Why not post to your own blog and tell us what YOU think about it?
Posted by: Phil Bradley | February 11, 2010 at 11:59 AM
Interesting thing about Buzz and the inbox is that you can add filters to them just like emails. This is a great idea - I would love to be able to filter/sort tweets like this - but the in-tray is not the place for this feature.
I also want to see how Google develops Buzz / Wave / Email / Reader integration. There is some real potential here but at the moment, Buzz is not that good.
Posted by: Chris Tregenza | February 11, 2010 at 12:22 PM
Played with Buzz last night. First impression is that it's a tidied-up version of wave/drown, and possibly yet another thing that requires a status update. I need less boxes to type stuff into (already have Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, Linked-In), not more.
The default of making the people you communicate with public I'm seriously not impressed with. I run a business, so am involved in competitive tendering and negotiating with academics. It's not something I'd want other people bidding for the same monies to see. #FailPrivacyProtect
Posted by: John Kirriemuir | February 11, 2010 at 12:22 PM