I titled this My First Review of Google Buzz because I am hoping that there will be more reviews of Google Buzz to follow this one. I am writing this on the fly so hopefully it will make sense.
First of all, I am so surprised to see how few of the people in my contact list on my one of my older gmail accounts even have a Google Profile. If you are using Google, take the time to make your profile. If you are socially minded at all on the net you should make a Google profile.
Why should you have a Google profile? I bet you think you are going to be hounded by spam mail. That is going to happen if you use the internet at all it seems, however, you can decide who to give access to, and who not to give access to.
Now on to more of the review. (Google developers are you going to read this?)
I think I will bullet this and do my best not to have it go into a rant and rave sort of thing, but just my honest thoughts.
First of all my background as a techie-geek-amateur. I realize I am not a coder. What I know about the computer comes from reading lots of help menus. I can build my own computer and build a website that is basic (extremely basic). I enjoy the social parts of the internet. I use Facebook, Twitter, and most recently WomVegas for my social sites. However I have started getting to know people who use Google Buzz. Oh I also have a few YouTube videos, but not as many as I should.
- I noticed the icon for Google Buzz in my Gmail account a while ago, but was not sure what it was all about. Did I miss the email sent out to Google account holders that told about Google Buzz? Was there one? (I hope if you know, and got an email, that you can put that email in a comment here.
- It seems when I want to know what is happening with Google I find out from one loyal internet friend, Chris Lang. I feel Google Buzz should reward Chris Lang for all he does to keep people like me informed of what is going on. I dedicate this post to Chris Lang. Google could learn a lot about reaching people with limited time to do their own research the way Chris Lang can, and put everything into words that amateur or non-techie people can use. Google, you need to be in more contact with your users, and have a suggestion box (or hire Chris Lang as a consultant).
- Thanks to Chris letting me know about the Buzz once something I posted showed up there, I started getting interested in Google Buzz. Seriously I do not know how I got something I wrote to appear on Google Buzz, but it must have been meant to be. This is why I am writing this review. I like the people I have met on the Buzz. So far the talk has been educational. It comes from they types of people who I do not get to interact with outside of the day job because I live quite an isolated existence after work.
- How many people are there like me in the world? I like to learn new things daily and interact with people who do interesting things and want to share them. I like being around positive people who I can have a discussion with. How can you meet people like this when you work more than full time and then try to run an online business after the day job is over, and do all the other domestic stuff to keep your house in some what livable order and your clothes from looking like you slept in them?
- What did #4 there have to do with my review of Google Buzz? Everything! Google Buzz developers need to realize what they have created and make it easier to access. When I am in my Gmail account, I want to do Gmail stuff. I do not want to be distracted by Buzz, and then forget to check my email because I run out of time.
- There are features where you can turn Google Buzz comments off in your received email files. That is great. Am I missing the part where I can access Buzz without going into Gmail? I would like that feature. I will have to go back and check my Google Profile to see if I can access it there.
You can get access to all of your own comments and the replies to it by going to your Google Profile. Did I mention that you need a Google Profile to use Buzz?
- I think there is a huge potential for Google Buzz for people who want to have discussions on a variety of topics where they want to have them open for friends of friends to comment. I enjoy getting to know friends of friends this way. As mentioned earlier, where can you go to meet people to have a great conversation with now days? If you are a non drinker, it is really difficult to talk to someone you have not met.
- Other pluses for Google Buzz can be for specific group interactions. If you are in business this can be another way to have an open meeting without being face to face. I see it as being great for brainstorming sessions. Each Buzz has a central topic created by the one who started it. I see great potential here that you can not get on Twitter and Facebook.
To sum it all up, I feel that Google has created another good platform with Buzz, but I wonder if it is just the Beta version for Google Me. That is what a lot of Google users are talking about. A Google social site with geographic tie ins. Some Buzz users seem very skeptical that Buzz will be here today and gone tomorrow, as Google moves on to their next phase of testing the social waters.
How many of you remember Yahoo Groups? I remember joining a few of them. Yahoo was ahead of the social networking craze with Yahoo Groups. Yahoo has a great platform for Blog users who have any type of Blog with MyBlogLog. It does not matter if you use Blogger, WordPress or another blog format. This is another way that Yahoo lead the pack in organizing groups of people with similar interests.
I mentioned Yahoo because I feel what they were doing from the start to get people to have places to share ideas was way ahead of Google. Google was not set up to be social. However, Google has seen that people are basically social. We have less time and money to go hang out in clubs to have meaningful discussions (?), so there is an area they can tap into.
My opinion is that people like Google. There is just something about it that we like. I like the no frills searching where I can get to my search destination without being distracted along the way. Gmail is incredible. There was and is a lot of thought that is in Gmail. I think that is why I hold on to the belief that Google can build a great social site eventually.
Google has the sorting features down and the grouping features down in Gmail. I hope that with Google Buzz we can see the developers taking it to a great feature for those of us who want to use it.
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