Are you ready for an other Facebook or Twitter only this time from - Google? The Internet Search giant announced yesterday its new "Social" product aimed to let you share links, photos and videos with your friends and other contacts. Also, it automatically retrieves the recent online activity (from Picasa, Flickr, Twitter and Google Reader - no embedded Facebook ties!) and all that only among your Gmail contacts. Via buzz.google.com, it's also available on Android and iPhone smartphones.
What was yesterday's reaction on the Web? Appearantly Facebook and Twitter users haven't been impressed much, since Buzz is mainly viewed as an add-on Gmail feature and just an other social network. So what was Google main competitors' reaction yesterday?
Microsoft: "Busy people don't want another social network, what they want is the convenience of aggregation," a Microsoft spokesperson told seattlepi.com.
Yahoo: "It’s been almost a year and a half since we first launched Yahoo! Updates – a social feature that lets people share their status, content and online activities and stay connected to what their friends and family are doing on Yahoo!" sais Yahoo! rep on Businessinsider Besides, Yahoo! has created Yahoo! Buzz - over a year now.
So is Google Buzz new? Does it offer any competitive advantages, except that it's integrated into Gmail (which many view as a drawback rather than benefit):
Dave Winer (a pioneer facilitator of RSS widget, cited by The Guardian):
"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."
Beside spam mentionings an other issue refers to privacy concerns: Google Buzz can put the contacts you automatically follow, those you most frequently email or chat — on a public profile page
. Lifehacker shows you how to Stop Google Buzz From Showing the World Your Contacts: basically you should uncheck the box "Display the list of people I'm following and people following me" from your Privacy settings on your Google Profile.
Again, additional vigilance saves you from a potential headache. To me - there are too many social networks that just seem to "copy paste" each other multiplying so much, that it becomes truly difficult to spot their unique benefits (USPs).
What's your view? Will Google Buzz become just an other Social Network or it will be convincing enough to determine many to leave Facebook and Twitter in favour of the new e-journey?
Curious to hear,
Yours,
Digital Lunch
Print this post
5 comments:
The more social networks show up the more privacy issues get into the game. Google Buzz is in its infancy now, anyway, I'm not giving up my Facebook for it. Great post, btw.
Thx Somon, glad you like it. Would be glad to hear further suggestions for our posts,
Best,
Digital Lunch
Hi, there! nice issue on the new Google social network. was quite useful to hear of some privacy monitoring tools, as well. Thanks for sharing!
Virginia Sanders
An other article came up today on Technorati:
Google Buzz Privacy Fears Overstated: http://technorati.com/blogging/article/google-buzz-privacy-fears-overstated/
Seems that Google is defending it's Buzz from Privacy anti-buzzes.
Stay tuned for more updates,
Digital Lunch Team
Google appologizes: BBC posted today an article highlighing the measures Google has taken in response to multiple complaints about its over-Buzz-ed product:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/maggieshiels/2010/02/google_buzz_mea_culpa.html
Following the web-stream,
Digital Lunch Team
Post a Comment