JMPR Communication

Archive for February, 2010

In another effort to dominate the world, Google announced their new social media platform yesterday- Google Buzz.  Being the geek I am, I jumped in full steam to see what “all the buzz” was about.  (Yes, I totally went there with the expected cliché.)

Buzz on the Go

I didn’t have access to the Web interface last night, so I did a little digging on my mobile. I found Google Buzz hanging out as a new layer option in my newly updated Google Maps application. (You can also access it on your browser, via a shortcut app, etc.) At first glance the new layer is amazing.  Buzz mobile integrates geo-location status updates that appear as little thought bubbles throughout the map.  I mean, how cool is that?  I can touch a bubble on my phone and see what all these local people I don’t even know are doing.

Did I mention that I don’t know any of these people?

So I posted an update.  For fun.  Because that’s what I do.  As soon as I posted, I regretted my choice.  Right next to my status update was my home address!  Now, I’m a social media over sharer for sure, but something about having my address revealed was very concerning.  Maybe I’m just getting old?

As I believe my parents would, I spent the next 20 minutes or so playing with my privacy settings.  I hid myself.  I opted to manually edit my location.  But every single time, my home address appeared with my updates.

I shouted my concern out into the buzzosphere, and within 5 minutes, I got a reply from someone else having the same problem.

Immediately I could see that Buzz on mobile presented privacy issues. And apparently Google saw this coming:

Google co-founder Sergey Brin told people tuning in to a live presentation and Webcast Tuesday that the company is concerned about privacy and security because the mobile service gives people the ability to share geographic coordinates, but individuals must decide for themselves whether to share and post their location. The Google Buzz privacy policy goes into more details.

But how bad is it when I exercise my options for privacy, and it doesn’t immediately work? It was especially interesting to see that when I woke up this morning, my settings had finally changed as I had requested.  Is there a lag time on the ability for privacy on mobile?

Early Adopters on Mobile

Despite my concerns for my own privacy, I snooped around to see who was buzzing on mobile and what they were saying.  Interestingly, I noticed that the areas surrounding UCSD and Cal State San Marcos had an enormous amount of activity in comparison to other San Diego locations.

Also awesome, most of these folks were sharing useful things.  Like: 8 dollar haircuts here, this sandwich shop closed down this week.  Some of this stuff was really helpful.  More helpful than anything I’ve seen on Foursquare actually. If I were Foursquare, I’d be concerned.

But we all know that the youth haven’t really embraced Twitter.  Could it be that Buzz addresses the needs of college students more than other applications? Interesting to see where that goes.

Buzz on the Web

This morning, as I embarked upon my usual coffee and email ritual, I saw it.  Buzz had arrived to my Gmail account.

You’ve probably heard this, but the stream looks just like FriendFeed.  Not just because of the threaded conversation, the ability to like a status or because the interface resembles it strongly.  But more humorously, the FriendFeed elite seem to have moved over.  (At least for today.)

So in the name of science, I spent half of my day stupidly distracted trying to figure out how Buzz works and to see if there is actually any value. Because I have way too much to say here, how about a list?

• It looks like a wave, sounds like a wave, and probably is Wave. I saw some people today refer to it as “Wave Lite.”
• The interface is easy. If you are already a social media geek.  I think this version will really skip the masses.
• Finding people that are not already in your contacts is almost impossible. And why can’t I import my friends from other social media services?  Do we really need a new place to post status updates? When will all my social media sites be aggregated in one happy place? One of my friends likened it to “starting over” today.
• @replies are worse.  It took me a whole conversation with strangers to figure it out.
  • To send an @reply to a stranger use this formula: “@personidontknow@gmail.com”
• Privacy issues appear on the Web version, too.  Honestly, 12 people I never heard of were pre-added to my “friend” list.  I am programmed to check out my lists.  I don’t think most people are.
• The noise pollution is insane. I commented on a thread today with 200 replies.  For the next 95 replies, I was alerted.  I did not subscribe to this thread.  I did not need or want a play-by-play.  Worse:
  • Subscribing to a thread is not an option
  • You can’t opt-out of the thread once you have commented.
  • When people @reply you, you don’t receive a notification.

• It lives where I live. Buzz lives right in my inbox.  Where I hang out every day.  And frankly this is awesome.

A visual, for those of you who work better with visuals:

Google Buzz

In Conclusion

Aside from the privacy issues and noise pollution, I think Buzz could really be worthy of the hype.  If Google allows me to aggregate my social media activities, import friends and share what I want with who I want (instead of everyone), I could really see myself moving to Buzz.

Do you like Buzz?  I’d love to hear your impressions.