Initial look at Google Buzz - the newest social networking service

This week Google unleashed some buzz upon the net causing, uh, some, uh, murmurings among the masses (hey, I did that without using the word ‘buzz’). Considering my last post was about taming the social networking firehose maybe one thing to ponder is that the last thing we need is another social networking firehose to explore. But given that it’s a different playing field with different features etc maybe this one will be more tamable, or something. In any case it has some very interesting features and future.

Buzz currently lives inside gmail appearing as another folder. Click on it and you’re brought to a stream of buzz’s sent out either by you or people you’re following. Because it lives within gmail the link for help on using Buzz is accessed via the gmail help.

But .. we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves so let’s first look at what this is, whether it’s worth the bother, and how to get set up.

What is Buzz?

They say: “Buzz lets you share updates, photos, links, and pretty much anything else you’d like with your Gmail contacts; it’s an easy way to follow your friends, too. When you click Buzz in your Gmail account, you’ll see the stream of posts from people you’re following, and a box for you to post your updates.”

At the moment you post something on your buzz. You can comment on it, or others can comment on it. You can post it publicly. Buzz items show up on your Google Profile page. It makes your Profile page look something like a Facebook wall. Individual Buzz’s have a link to them, that goes to a page showing that Buzz, giving each conversation its own life.

Discuss ‘what is buzz’

Is it worthwhile?

I think it’s got a great future ahead of it. Right now it’s a little rough around the edges but is very functional and useful. For example take Let’s Buzz with SMS, a live conversation conducted during a live podcast recording of “Social Media Serenity”. It started during the podcast but is continuing on for those of us who have a connection to it. But the reason I’m linking to it is it shows several social networking experts gushing over the thing.

That’s why I think it has a great future ahead of it. It’s good enough now to be useful and it’s got lights pinging in our heads about how we might use it.

Discuss ‘is Buzz worthwhile’

Getting started with Buzz

It relies on you having two things set up: a) a GMAIL Account, b) a Google Profile. Along the way of setting those up you’ll also create a Google Account.

Setting up a gmail account is as simple as going to gmail.com, clicking “Create Account” and filling in all the information. Do it already. It’s a good service. However there’s something that’s bumming some of us out. Those of us who have set up “Google Apps” for our domains have gmail service attached to our own domain, but those gmail accounts cannot be used for Google Buzz. The only gmail account usable with Buzz are the ones with an address ending in “@gmail.com”. Yuck. Bleck. GAAAAAH!!!! I HATE THIS.

Okay.. in the grand scheme of things this is a minor difficulty compared to, say, living in a country where suicide bombers are striking at random and you never know whether you’ll return home from going grocery shopping.

With a gmail account set up it’s rather difficult right now to use gmail without being asked to set up buzz. There is a circuitous route to find your Google Account and Profile. At google.com/accounts you can manage your various Google Accounts and the features you’ve set up within your accounts, while Google profiles appear at google.com/profiles/username. If you go to either page gives you lots of options, and if you’re logged in to Google and go to your profile page there’s a link to your account page.

Why do you need a Profile? In the Buzz help there’s a question “Why do I need a profile?” which I thought would have an existential answer explaining the purpose and reasoning behind this. But no, they just say that in order to use Buzz you must have a Profile without explaining.

There is a general principle at work that to make good positive use of a social networking site it’s a great idea to have a fantastic profile. All your postings on the social networking site will link back to your profile, hence the profile is a way to express your personal branding. If someone likes one of your posts, they might go to your profile, see something they like there, maybe click on the link back to your blog, and if they continue liking what they see they may subscribe to the blog and become a repeat reader. In other words the profile is useful for your meta-purpose of getting attention.

Sharing: What are you thinking?

Did you have a good Mom who taught you how to share? Great! You’ll feel right at home. On Twitter the question is “What’s Happening”, on Facebook the question is “What’s on your mind”, and on Buzz it’s “Share what you’re thinking”. All these are basically the same question. What’s going on, and type something in the box already.

Public or private

You won’t want to buzz everything to be seen by everyone in the universe. Some things you want to share only with a few friends. When you click in the Share box a couple buttons show up, one of which lets you select between public and private. It explains pretty well what those mean. Obviously from the picture you can group your friends and select a group to buzz with.

Discuss ‘public or private buzzings’

Viewing another buzzers buzzings

In Buzz click on a name of a buzzer and you’ll be taken to their buzz page and see things they’ve buzzed about. There may be a link to their profile page as well.

On the profile page is a tab labeled ‘Buzz’. That also shows their buzzings.

Searching for buzz

When in buzz the search box at the top of gmail has a button labeled “Search Buzz”. There are already millions of buzzers buzzing away. Go forth and search what they’re buzzing.

Discuss ‘searching for buzz’

Drive by buzzing

A fun thing about the buzz search is that you can leave comments anywhere. I wonder if Google will set up some fancier access control in the future such as “this is public but only group W can post”. Anyway that opens up interesting spamming possibilities.

Discuss drive by buzzing

Link to a buzz

Each buzz has its own page and link to that page. The date at the top of the buzz is a link to this page.

Email / Link to / Mute / Edit / Delete / etc buzzings

Next to the date is a dropdown list of operations you can perform. This will look familiar if you’ve used Gmail.

These are various things you can do with Buzz.

The most interesting is “mute” which ensures the buzz doesn’t show up in your activity stream.