I am yet to see Google Buzz in my gmail, but from what I can say, one of the things the Google engineers got wrong was “auto-following” all people in your contact list. I have emailed some people only once or twice, and I dont want to ‘follow’ all these people. This is one case of ‘bad defaults’. Unless you consciously and willingly make an informed choice about whether you want to hear status updates from someone you shouldnt be automatically forced into doing so.
* * *
Instead of writing lengthy blog posts, I think more writers should keep to a macro level opinions/blogs/thoughts etc. (as opposed to micro level – 140 characters) People’s attention spans have grown shorter on web reading – 5 sentences or 5 minutes, whichever comes earlier, seems to be the attention span right now for me for any and all web reading.
* * *
Just came across a headline on Fark – “Couple caught with over 50 alleged fake credit cards. Multiple charges expected” and my eyes registered the first word as “Google”. The words look remarkably similar in shape, dont they.
* * *
I think these tiny Twitter status updates should each have a quality meter in them. That way when you see a good tweet from someone, you can give a public rating on it. (now you can ‘favorite’ a tweet but it is only for your own private consumption) And other people coming after you reading the same post from the same person whom they are following, should be able to filter tweets so they can quickly say something like ’show me only those tweets that 5 people have voted on and read’, as a way of quickly sorting through a mess of status updates.
* * *
I just had time to view the Google Buzz video that Google had made and posted in its Blog, and another thing I can see wrong is if anybody comments on your Buzz feed, it comes through to your main inbox. Inbox is considered separate and distinct in concept, usage and function rather than getting social updates. Social updates can quickly overwhelm the information consumer due to their sheer volume/number. They (the Google Buzz team) should just have left the new updates stay in the “Buzz” inbox as new items.
* * *
I just viewed that Google Buzz video again in this page and it strikes me that it is indeed a good idea, but if I am sharing a status update with the ‘world’ how do I find other people’s status updates who have also shared something ‘public’ with ‘the world’ and choose to ‘follow’ someone based on what their sharing history is.
Google Buzz seems like made for people looking to post/share short interesting or informative posts with the world, more like a blog.
I also think I can see similarities in Google Buzz with the way Friendfeed works. The logo for Google Buzz seems to be strikingly similar to Google Chrome’s logo.
* * *
Just viewed Mashable’s Google Buzz page. So thats where ‘public’ status updates will end up in. I see they have a “Load More Buzz” link at the bottom. This is something I dont like – infinite scroll. But it is something used by Twitter web interface, Qrobe.it combination search engine which I have been using for some time to mix results from Bing and Google, and now Google Buzz has also started “infinite scroll”. Give me pagination instead of infinite scroll anytime.
* * *
