Get APLawrence.com by RSS(OLDER) <- More Stuff -> (NEWER) (NEWEST)
Home > Websites, Blogging > The bad side of google buzz
Printer Friendly Version
Buzzkill
I see Google Buzz as being a wonderful tool for real conversations. Unfortunately, too many people are seeing it as yet another Twitter.
Google has unfortunately helped create that bad impression by offering to republish Tweets in Buzz. That's a bad, bad idea: I've already shut that off in my account and I'd strongly advise everyone else to do the same ( though if you weren't misusing Twitter to begin with, this wouldn't have been as much of a problem as it is).
Google made another mistake in duplicating Buzz posts to your email. Some people may want that, but most of us probably do not. Right now, there doesn't seem to be a way to shut that off. You can try to create a filter to delete Buzz posts, but your filter runs the risk of deleting legitimate mail. Google needs to fix that.
Buzz also needs better organization. Related threads should be able to be grouped together. There's no way to do that now.
Is Buzz a bust? I don't know. I still think it could be very useful, but I also see that these errors could kill it before many people realize that.
If this page was useful to you, please click to help others find it: Your +1's can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search.
Inexpensive and informative Apple related e-books:
Your 802.11n AirPort Network
Take Control of Bookle
Customizing Microsoft Office
Maintaining Your Mac
Thanksgiving Dinner
More Articles by Anthony Lawrence - Find me on Google+
Have you tried Searching this site?
Unix/Linux/Mac OS X support by phone, email or on-site: Support Rates
This is a Unix/Linux resource website. It contains technical articles about Unix, Linux and general computing related subjects, opinion, news, help files, how-to's, tutorials and more. We appreciate comments and article submissions.
Many of the products and books I review are things I purchased for my own use. Some were given to me specifically for the purpose of reviewing them. I resell or can earn commissions from the sale of some of these items. Links within these pages may be affiliate links that pay me for referring you to them. That's mostly insignificant amounts of money; whenever it is not I have made my relationship plain. I also may own stock in companies mentioned here. If you have any question, please do feel free to contact me.
Specific links that take you to pages that allow you to purchase the item I reviewed are very likely to pay me a commission. Many of the books I review were given to me by the publishers specifically for the purpose of writing a review. These gifts and referral fees do not affect my opinions; I often give bad reviews anyway.
We use Google third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.
Buy Kerio from a dealer who knows tech: I sell and support
Kerio Connect Mail server, Control, Workspace and Operator licenses and subscription renewals
Click here to add your comments
Thu Feb 11 14:03:33 2010: TonyLawrence
I think the Public side of Buzz is causing people to ignore the potential of the private side.
For example: if everyone in your club or organization had gmail accounts, you could all have conversations in a private Buzz thread. No other tool offers that capability right now - only Buzz.
Thu Feb 11 15:09:10 2010: MarkBelanger
http://nemasket.net
I don't have anything intelligent to say about buzz yet - but that's never stopped me from chiming in before.
The "private" potential is interesting. For me today, right now, and keeping in mind that I've only looked at for a day and a few buzzes(is that the term) ... I can't help but look at it through the lens of other tools I use on a daily basis - IM, twitter, facebook, and email. Via pidgin all my IM is roughly integrated in one place(skype, facebook, AOL, etc). posts to my web site automatically go to twitter and facebook. I check the actual facebook web page once or twice a day. Email is a paradigm I'm very comfortable with and my google calendar is integrated in that. So far, despite it's cool features, I don't see me dropping these other tools.
Like wave and facebook, I don't like that I have to go to this web page and use it within that framework. I would probably like it better if I could use it like another IM client via a pidgin plugin, skip all the WOW features and at least get the IM part if it pulled into my normal world. True or not, there seems to be a bit of a google-only feel to it so I wonder how many non-google users will flock to it.
All this may be dead wrong and I reserve the right to deny I said any of it after I've used buzz more.
Thu Feb 11 15:13:14 2010: BrettLegree
http://6weeks.ca
Agreed on both counts (Twitter feed turned off, Buzz posts need to be out of the Inbox or filtered) - I already did both. Too much noise.
Also, as we had both said earlier, keeping the number of people you follow small, and choosing people who don't follow a lot of others, makes it quite useful.
Thu Feb 11 21:34:42 2010: TonyLawrence
It would be better to also have a separate client for this. For one thing, it would be easier to bring in other people who do not necessarily want a Gmail account.
Yes, I'm aware that a Wave client is effectively that :-)
This would be less threatening than Wave - easier. But if Google insists upon people buying into Gmail, well, that's going to limit the spread. I have several groups that I would LOVE to bring together in Wave or this.. Wave is probably too confusing for some of them and most of the rest just would not do it if they have to get Gmail - yes, they could ignore and not use the Gmail, but a separate client would be much better.
Fri Feb 12 22:45:42 2010: ClaudeAlbaek
Have a look at this also.. Google really need to do more in-house work on this.
http://www.eset.comthreat-centerblog20100212is-gmail-spyware&h=b5b7e6a6f582b17703fdc0b374210a65
Don't miss responses! Subscribe to Comments by RSS or by Email
Click here to add your comments
If you want a picture to show with your comment, go get a Gravatar