Two Scoops of Buzz 178
Lots of Buzz buzz is still running through the internets yet, so here's a bit more of it, just in case you aren't burnt out yet. Google has added a one-button disable option to totally remove the system from Gmail. I'm sure someone there sure wishes that had been on by default. This is partially in response to a class action complaint and follows earlier cleanup efforts as well as an apology for auto-follow. Since there is no Facebook interaction, I still wonder what traction they will get. But maybe this means the end of Twitter.
might turn out to have been smart (Score:5, Interesting)
While a lot of people are using this fiasco as evidence that Google's a bunch of techies who don't understand users, I can't really believe that it was totally unforseen and accidental. Google made a conscious decision to leverage their existing social graph of webmail users by, as automatically as possible, turning it into an actual social-network graph. If they hadn't done that, Buzz would probably not have jump-started very quickly, but now it has a huge built-in userbase. Even if a bunch of people disable it now, they're probably still way ahead in terms of total users than where they would've been if they had played nice.
So may turn out they did know what they were doing, at least from a business perspective.
The end of twitter? Hardly (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:End of twitter? not likely... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, Buzz has something better... Interoperability with -every- site out there. If the site has an RSS feed for your updates, you can bring them into Buzz really easily. If it doesn't, the site can choose to integrate more directly with Buzz.
The only thing I've found lacking in Buzz is the ability to find and follow random people. With twitter, when I'm learning Japanese, I can watch the live twitter global feed and find people posting interesting things in Japanese and follow them. Buzz doesn't have that... Yet.
Re:might turn out to have been smart (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I think it -would- have. Have you seen the clamor for Google invites? Any time a new service comes out, even if it's going to be meh, people go nuts to get invites. Google Wave, for instance... Does anyone actually still use that? It was all the rage when nobody had invites.
Re:End of twitter? not likely... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to mention there's less motivation to go to a new social network when there are existing ones already set up with many people using it. I highly doubt Google can go far here.
Eh thats what people thought with MySpace - but look at Facebook now.
Google, being the power house that it is, could easily build the apps and operability that Twitter has. Except for ONE snag:
I think the biggest thing holding it back will be its competitors. Given that Google has broken into the Smartphone market with the Droid and all that - I doubt Apple is going to approve any apps that let you update your Buzz.
You can make Buzz a billion times better than twitter and implement new features, but if the iPhone holds a reasonable market share, and the iPhone doesn't let you update it, it's not likely to take off.
Inversely - if somehow this DOES become more popular, an odd occurence I couldn't see happening, iPhone sales could drop unless they allow an App for Buzz.
Re:End of twitter? not likely... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:End of twitter? not likely... (Score:4, Interesting)
Google's notoriously short attention span.
Google Buzz + Google Reader (Score:3, Interesting)