A lot of people have been talking about the newest form of social media, Google Buzz. In the first week after Google released its new venture into the social networking world, nobody would stop commenting on it, however, the comments weren’t all positive. Many users were concerned with the fact that they were automatically connected to people they sent and received the greatest amount of email on their Gmail account. Understandable, considering people don’t post their email correspondence or contact lists for all to see.
Google quickly took note of their error, and after four days the Google team posted an article on their Official Gmail Blog addressing each of the issues. They informed readers that the option to display the user’s following list has been made more prominent and “instead of an auto-follow model in which Buzz automatically sets you up to follow the people you email and chat with most, we’re moving to an auto-suggest model.” In addition, Google added a ‘Buzz’ tab in the Gmail settings, allowing users to change their settings, or hide Buzz completely from their Gmail inbox.
So, why wouldn’t everyone immediately head to their settings and disable this new feature? What is all the buzz about when there are already so many social networking sites that are already in existence and heavily trafficked?
Here is a quick rundown on the features, and how you can start to familiarize yourself with such a new tool. At this point, Google Buzz has unlimited potential for success… and failure, but it is best to be well equipped for either possibility.
Buzz is built directly into Gmail, so anyone with a Google or Gmail Account has nothing to set up – everything is integrated right into the platform people are familiar with. The goal of Buzz is to make the sharing experience that people are already participating in on sites like Picasa, Flickr, YouTube and Twitter a more rich in-line experience. When you open a photo or video, they are viewed in the way they were meant to be seen – big and in full resolution. Rather than navigating away from the site you are at, you can view YouTube videos right in your Buzz window. By connecting other sites you are already active in, you have everything in one place where you can choose to share with the world or to a private network of friends.
Similar to Twitter, you can follow certain individuals whose posts you want to see and Buzz will help you out by recommending posts you might find interesting, or collapsing posts they know you won’t. As you spend more time on Buzz, the recommendations offered will become more accurate, providing you with only the best suggestions.
As your Buzz stream begins to grow (as it most likely will) you can manage your buzzes by “muting” them or changing your notification settings. After posting your own buzz, you have the opportunity to mute it a well, edit the content, delete some comments or delete the buzz all together. In order to make posting buzzes easier, you can create contact lists to post to – similar to groups in Facebook.
After you integrate your other social media sites, all of your posts (microblogging, photos and otherwise) will be compiled in Buzz. You can also choose to update your Buzz posts by email by sending a message to buzz@gmail.com, just make sure you have specified your email privacy settings ahead of time! Some other tricks of the trade include adding *asterisks*, _underscores_ or –dashes- to your text will turn it into bold, italic, and struckthrough text.
Okay, so now you’re on Buzz (maybe not by choice) and you know how to handle all of the settings and options. What should you be doing on there?
First, start sharing on Buzz. Post comments, links, videos, photos – anything that you would normally put on Twitter or Facebook. Next, start reading on Buzz. See what the people you are following are posting about and comment accordingly. Whenever someone comments, that post will bounce back to the top of your Buzz Stream – so everyone will see the most recent content posted. As with any social networking site, interacting is the most important feature. To grab someone’s attention, use the @ symbol before someone’s name that you have in your contact list or in the status bar. The person will then be notified via email that you directly replied to them. Last, but not least, search on Buzz. See what people are talking about, and whether or not it applies to you. You can filter by source, author, commenter and if the post has a link, video or image attached to it.
For those looking for the business uses of Buzz, a co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin, has already found it to be a valuable business tool, leading the company to plan a release of an enterprise version of Buzz. Brin commented that when he was writing an op-ed piece for the New York Times, he found sharing and gathering feedback from one person at a time very frustrating. The solution is to solicit comments and feedback from 50 people at once and see where that takes you.
At such an early stage in the game, it is difficult to say whether Google Buzz will survive the initial outrage (and possible lawsuits) regarding privacy issues and become part of mainstream social media use. With the “Buzz it” logo showing up on so many sites alongside the ‘retweet’ and ‘share’ options for Twitter and Facebook, it appears that Google is ready to enter the world of social media in a big way after their failed attempts with Orkut and OpenSocial. Only time will tell if the buzz will die down or quickly grow into a roaring worldwide conversation.
To keep up with the latest Buzz news, check out our Google Buzz posts follow @wris_oh on Twitter and become a fan of WRIS on Facebook!
