Today I saw that almost every source I look at on a daily basis was filled with buzz about the impending roll out of Google Buzz. From what I could gather, it looks like an addition to Gmail (email) accounts which behaves much more like Facebook, in that it allows for much more social interaction with the addition of including your Twitter account (and therefore your tweets…), your Picasa web albums, your Google Reader, and Google Maps… There seems to be a lot of things which this does, and adds to a ‘vanilla’ Gmail account.
I think that this is great, and I already have it working on my iPhone, although it looks like it may take a little while for me to use it (i.e. have it enabled) on my PC’s. But, as I continued thinking, this ‘revolutionary’ upgrade to my email account looks like an addition which places my email account halfway towards Google Wave (which is soon to be released to the general public….one of these months or years…).
What does this tell us about Google Wave? Maybe I have been following the national health-care debates too much…this feels slightly analogous to me. That is, Google Wave as a complete replacement for email, and the current bill(s) in congress about health-care as a complete replacement of much of the health industry structure. People will continue to communicate regardless, and people will continue to use health care regardless…
Another thought came to me… with regard to this ‘revolutionary new product’, as with last week’s ‘revolutionary new product’ (apple’s iPad).How many of these ‘game changing’ paradigm changes do we need…one a week?
Yesterday I mentioned that I was a bit discouraged to see that while a homebrew project I that I am currently trying to get to work has been covered by dozens and dozens of techno-pundits, edu/techno pundits, and it seems that not one of them actually tried it out. I seem to remember something related to this about the fashion choices of an Emperor…
So, with the full weight of all the irony I can bring to the fore…here are some resources, links, and videos about Google Buzz…
From Iifehacker.com
Buzz’s five key features, as laid out in the event at Google HQ today, include:
- Automatic friends lists (friends are added automatically who you have emailed on Gmail)
- “Rich fast sharing” combines sources like Picasa and Twitter into a single feed, and it includes full-sized photo browsing
- Public and private sharing (swap between family and friends)
- Inbox integration (instead of emailing you with updates, like Facebook might, Buzz features emails that update dynamically with all Buzz thread content)
- “Recommended Buzz” puts friend-of-friend content into your stream, even if you’re not acquainted. Recommendations learn over time with your feedback.
Buzz lets you share photos, video, links to web sites, and other content from all over the web with your closest contacts or with the public at large.
and…
Apart from working directly inside Gmail, it can pull content from Twitter, from Flickr, and from various other popular social sites from across the web. Currently social services supported include:
- Flickr
- Picasa Web
- YouTube
- Blogger
- Any feed connected to your Google profile (like your blog)
and for Smartphone’s…
You can get the straight information from the Google site
Considering what I just wrote, the web site Techcrunch at least added in some deeper perspectives:
Buzz also wants to differentiate itself another way: social curation. As Mike wrote about the other night, the social web right now is largely a mess. There’s simply too much going on, and no one is really working to sort it all out. Google is trying to do that with Buzz by allowing you to import items from services like Twitter, but only show you the best ones. For example, Google says it will hide quick messages like “brb.” The plan is to also auto-collapse items that don’t have a lot of comment activity.
For now, this data is sadly only a one-way street. That is to say, you won’t be able to update your Twitter account from Google Buzz, we’re told. But Google seems to be indicating that this functionality will be included eventually, and that overall they’d like the product to be as open as possible. And yes, there will be plenty of APIs. But one company noticeably absent from all this talk of importing and exporting data is the 800-pound social gorilla in the room: Facebook.
Finally, I’ll add in this from oreilly.com. I have a last point too… Almost all of the pundits are quoting the adage that Google Wave is the future and Google Buzz is the present. To me is seems much more plausible that Google Buzz may turn out to be the email that we will all be using, and Google Wave will dominate business intranets, sooner or later…
