Google Buzz Archive

Just a day after reports came out that 89% of content on Google Buzz comes from bots, today Google announced that you can now watch Buzz content inside of Google Maps.

What this means is if you use Google Buzz for Mobile, you can select to share your location when you make posts on Google Buzz. Those posts will include geo-location data which will then show up on Google Maps. To view the Google Buzz content on Google Maps, you will need to add the layer inside of Google Maps.

I wonder what percentage of Google Buzz users are using the mobile service – no one I know (outside of tech bloggers wanting some hits) uses Google Buzz even on the desktop.

I love Google’s example of this new interactivity!

Last November I took a look at the user experience for a new user who attempts to access Twitter.com. Tonight I’d like to provide the same new user experience for a person attempting to use Google Buzz. I don’t plan to touch on the privacy issues which seem to be the big topic as of late. In my opinion, the user experience is miserable and probably pushes away many new users (especially those who aren’t “social media experts”). For the purposes of this post, place yourself in the role of a new user no matter what your so-called expertise level is. You should also read Adrian Chan’s Google Buzz breakdown.

Let’s begin with a simple question — what exactly is Google Buzz? Is it a new type of messageboard/forum? Should a mainstream user be able to compare the user experience to something they already know? Or is this a brand new type of online user experience?

Accessing Google Buzz

When a user agrees to use Buzz, the only link to Buzz appears inside of Gmail on the left menu under their Inbox. Is Buzz a folder like the Inbox, Sent Items and Spam are? No, Buzz is an entire entity – welcome to confusion. Let’s assume Buzz remains inside of Gmail, the link to Buzz needs to be moved away from the folders. Frankly it should become a “module” similar to the chat module. This would also allow for customization and some items could be pulled into that left menu module as well based on user requirements.

ignore the 669 new messages in the inbox, I use Gmail mostly as a newsletter catcher
Continue reading “Welcome New Buzz User. Now Get Outta Here!” »

I am aware of the irony of posting about the the buzz on Google Buzz this week. But there’s no other way to contribute than to heap yet more on the pile.

I’ll skip over the many good points that have been raised this week within buzz and alongside it. If you are reading this, you have probably read them.

I want simply to make a few observations about the Buzz user experience, some of which are simply unavoidable, and many of which belong to the “conversation” space in general.

Talk is a difficult thing to facilitate using social tools and services. This is because in addition to the content itself, there are contributors, readers, relationships, audiences, social scenes, and public. And talk is a form of social action. A statement alone is communication. A response is action that communicates. Many kinds of actions involving talk exist (greetings to wedding vows), involving varying degrees of sincerity, expectation, commitment, trust, and so on.

Continue reading “Breaking down the Gbuzz” »

By now most people within the sound of this blog post have already heard about Google’s launch of Google Buzz. The service, which is amazingly similar to Friendfeed, basically brings together a person’s (or brand) social activity from across the Web and allows their friends (or customers) the ability to vote and comment on items.

Most of the people I’ve had discussions with regarding buzz all seem to agree that Google placed Buzz inside of Gmail for the “instant userbase”. One of the reasons that Google Wave has seemed to not grab users interest is that it’s on a separate website which creates a need for Google to market the service to users. By jamming it directly inside of one of the most popular email services, Gmail, they instantly have the userbase that Friendfeed never was able to achieve. Even though many of us have talked about a social network inside of email for years, it still seems a bit odd. Perhaps it will become more familiar over time. Sadly now I need to use Gmail even though I very much prefer Yahoo Mail (except when they don’t deliver my mail for hours or days).

<begin crazy theory mode>

Back in November, Adam Ostrow from Mashable and Caroline McCarthy from Cnet wrote about a partnership between Twitter and Google which would allow Google access to the content on Twitter. McCarthy noted, “Google and Twitter have cut a deal where Google is essentially licensing a data feed from Twitter to get that information in search results.”

It appears that Google is paying several million dollars for this data feed. Now that Google has launched Buzz and you can add your public Twitter datastream into Buzz, is there a need for Google to pay for the data feed?

Naturally it’s easy to say that not every Gmail user will use Buzz and those that do may not include their Twitter feeds. But with Gmail having a larger installed userbase than Twitter and with (my speculation) a near 1:1 overlap in users, might the Buzz Twitter stream get Google pretty close to the data feed? In addition, by using the Google Buzz Twitter stream, it gives Google a better way to rank tweets in search results rather than just a person’s Twitter follower counts and simple usage patterns.

In addition, it would allow Google to basically push the search results into Buzz instead of to Twitter.

<end crazy theory mode>

So am I crazy or not?

Yesterday we saw the launch of Google Buzz – a service that allows you to create conversations around content. The launch of Google Buzz dominated the tech news aggregator Techmeme nearly all day. One of the big complaints by popular bloggers like Robert Scoble has been that Techmeme doesn’t include content from social services like Facebook, Twitter or Friendfeed.

Interestingly, this morning I noticed that a Google Buzz item was given lead status as displayed below. And I know what you are thinking but it really wasn’t a MG Siegler item! The Google Buzz item was started by Google employee Brad Fitzpatrick. Brad was the founder of LiveJournal which was sold to Six Apart in 2005.

Brad’s Buzz item explains how to get your blog and/or feed into Google Buzz for buzzing – worth a read if you plan to use Google Buzz.

Will we see more Google Buzz on Techmeme? Was this item just the beginning of social integration into Techmeme?  I’d suggest that if Google Buzz is indexed, Friendfeed should be indexed as well. Once the current blizzard leaves NYC, I will attempt to contact the staff at Techmeme for a response.

For archival purposes, here’s a graphic representation of the Google Buzz item on Techmeme:

Last November I wrote that Twitter was slowly becoming Friendfeed. And in October, the Friendfeed team said the service wasn’t going away. They were right!

Well today we learned that another company wants to be Friendfeed. I’d like to welcome you to Google Buzz.

You can read Google Buzz reviews from Alex Wilhelm of NextWeb and Louis Gray.

I’ve been watching the live stream of the Google Buzz event and it looks and functions exactly like Friendfeed except that it’s inside Gmail versus a stand-alone Web application like Friendfeed was/is.

I can only hope that Google Buzz works as smoothly as Friendfeed does and I also hope that Google Buzz pushes out as much as they pull in.

Update: There’s an excellent Google Buzz discussion thread started by Robert Scoble on Friendfeed.

Update 2: During the Q&A session, someone asked about the comparison to Friendfeed and the Google employee (sorry don’t know the name) replied with, ”we dont look at competitors, we just build what our users want”.

Update 3: Many on the Friendfeed chat and several of the questions noted that Google Buzz looks and acts just like Facebook.