Buzz: Not Dead, No Killer
NYT: Buzz, nicely integrated with Gmail and Google Chat, will have its own following; http://j.mp/bTiQTm
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Buzz
Google: Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations, built right into Gmail; http://j.mp/9AFwAB
Gerrit Eicker
Google Status
WSJ: Google is taking a swipe at Facebook and Twitter with new status updates via Gmail, Google Talk; http://j.mp/bgGSUg
Gerrit Eicker
Google Latitude Apps
Google released 2 apps for Latitude that automatically update Google Talk, Gmail chat, any website; http://tr.im/kt3f
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Google Talk location status (beta) automatically updates your Google Talk or Gmail chat status message with your Latitude location. With this application enabled, all of your chat buddies can see your most recent city-level location. The Google Public Location Badge lets you publish your Latitude location on your blog or website. You can choose to show just the city that you are in or you can have your device’s location detected automatically, using GPS, Wi-Fi, or cell tower ID, which provides a more specific location.”
TC: “Before these apps, there was no way to broadcast your location to the public at large via Latitude, only to your own Gmail contacts through the Latitude feature. Now you can publicize your location more broadly via Gmail Chat and your blog. Of course there are privacy concerns with publicly sharing your location at all times, but it is already happening and public geo-broadcasting will only become more popular over time.”
RWW: “Google is clearly taking a very serious look at location aware services and according to today’s blog post, the company plans to introduce more applications that can make use of one’s Latitude data in the near future.”
Mashable: “In other news, while I was impressed with Google Latitude at launch, I’m not actively using it today. Part of the reason is privacy – I’m not super stoked about sharing my location all of the time, and don’t want the hassle of turning the app on and off. Another issue is that I don’t feel like building a separate contact network, and would rather Facebook and/or Twitter simply build location-aware features.”
SEL: “Google is also cautioning people to be aware of the privacy implications. Users cannot be selectively blocked. When these apps are enabled everyone gets to see your location (hence the city level recommendation). – Google had previously said that there were over a million sign-ups for Latitude in the first couple of weeks. I asked for any update on that number but Google said it wasn’t going to share anything further on user numbers for the time being.”
Google: “Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting. It’s built right into Gmail, so you don’t have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch – it just works. If you think about it, there’s always been a big social network underlying Gmail. Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most. We focused on building an easy-to-use sharing experience that richly integrates photos, videos and links, and makes it easy to share publicly or privately (so you don’t have to use different tools to share with different audiences). Plus, Buzz integrates tightly with your existing Gmail inbox, so you’re sure to see the stuff that matters most as it happens in real time.”
NYT: “Google and Facebook are on a collision course in the increasingly competitive market for social networking services. – On Tuesday, Google introduced a new service called Google Buzz, a way for users of its Gmail service to share updates, photos and videos. The service will compete with sites like Facebook and Twitter, which are capturing an increasing percentage of the time people spend online.”
Guardian: “The move brings Google into closer conflict with a number of smaller rivals than ever before. Although the company remains the most powerful force on the web – and has even seen profits from its internet advertising business continue to rise despite the recession – it has also been feeling increasing pressure from competitors that have tapped into a desire to connect with friends and family online.”
TC: “Without having had a chance to play with it yet, it would seem that the core idea behind Buzz is to take on Twitter and Facebook as the easiest way to share content online. Google is offering a number of compelling features such as smart curation (it gets better as you tell it what you like and what you don’t), and a rich mobile experience including location. – Because of the features it adds on to what Twitter does, and its overall look, it’s hard not to compare Buzz to FriendFeed. That service was arguably the better product than Twitter, but never took off in the same way for whatever reason (though I would argue that simplicity was a big factor).”
NYT: “People will find the Google Buzz notes right in their Gmail in-boxes, where they’re marked with a special Buzz icon that looks like a cartoon text bubble filled with Google’s signature primary colors. The comments that follow an update, also known as a Buzz, are grouped in a similar fashion to the way Gmail handles a thread of messages.”
Winer: “I only know about first impressions of Google Buzz because once I saw what it did to my Gmail inbox, which is a mission-critical app for me, my mission became How do I turn this off? … It violates the prime directive of new software. It starts turned on, and the way to turn it off is all-but invisible. And it invades a space that heretofore Google helped to protect. One of the big values of Gmail is its spam filter. Now all of a sudden it’s as if the exhaust was reversed, and it was spraying dirt into my message stream, instead of filtering it out.”
SEL: “Gmail certainly has its share of dedicated, hardcore users – people who have Gmail set as their home page and keep it open all day in a separate browser tab. But do these users want social networking to invade their inbox? We’re all familiar with the challenge of separating work time – which almost always involves email – from ‘social time,’ and Google is taking somewhat of a risk by combining the two with Buzz.”
Jarvis: “I think this could be the beginning of some big things: The hyperpersonal news stream, which Marissa Mayer has been talking about. The key value here is not just aggregating our streams but prioritizing them by listening to signals that unlock relevance. … Local is clearly a big Google priority. Newspapers, Yellow Pages, local media, and perhaps even craigslist better watch out. Google is gunning to organize our areas and with that comes an incredible flood of advertising opportunity. … Personalization is key to this: relevance in your feed; publishing to your friends (even understanding who your friends are). I think this portends the end of the universal search and thus of search-engine optimization (there’ll be no way to calculate how high a result rises when everyone’s results are different).”
RWW: “Google Buzz could quickly become the most popular location-based service on the Internet. Not only does Buzz integrate itself into Gmail, which will give it a large mainstream user base, but Buzz also puts geolocation front and center on its mobile sites. In addition, the new Buzz layer in the Google Maps mobile interface makes it incredibly easy to find geotagged Buzz messages around you. … By default, location sharing is turned on in Buzz, which raises concerns about privacy.”
VB: “You’ll find more location features when you go to the Buzz mobile website. In addition to posting an update, you can see a Google place profile of where you are, and you can click on a ‘nearby’ button to see all the public updates from users near your location. This might be particularly useful if you’re at a big event like a conference, so you see all the conversation around that conference. – None of these individual features are all that unique or innovative, but by tying them into a comprehensive product, which is itself integrated with a number of popular Google services like Gmail, Google might find location-based success in a way that it doesn’t seem to have done with its earlier location service, Latitude.”
RWW: “Google Buzz is headed for the enterprise. According to the Google Enterprise blog, Google Buzz will become a part of Google Apps within the next few months. – Google Buzz applies as much to the enterprise as it does to the consumer market. The real-time application creates an extension for communication that adds a threaded context to a conversation, a critical component for an enterprise application.”