Buzzing About Buzz
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, February 12, 2010
Joe MandeseIs anyone using Buzz, and what do you think of this? (Or is that a stupid question?)
1 person liked this - Josh Lovison
Laurie Sullivan - asking the same question - not getting a response yet.
Feb 10
Joe
Mandese - Yeah, this may be a case of a technology being almost too seamless. So seamless, you don't even know you're using it. Maybe that's the
point?
Feb 10
Laurie Sullivan - I feel like I'm IMing someone in a chat room because on this post the comments are public.
Feb 10
Josh Lovison - I'm playing with it, but I have two issues:
1. It needs Facebook Connect.
2. The privacy issues skeeve me out.
The service is absolutely seamless, until you think about direction of information. It can pull in content, but doesn't push it back out. They will need to open APIs and allow content to leave the Google universe, or the value (and reach) of my contributions on Buzz will be too small to matter.
Also, the combination of location, real name information, and public access -- that's a problem for me. I'm one of those rare people that creates and manages lists in his Facebook to partition and control exposure to content, and it doesn't yet do a satisfactory job of clearly seperating privacy modes. It needs to have almost a "Chrome-like" privacy mode that visually demonstrates what I'm doing isn't public, for me to be comfortable using this for inter-personal communication beyond a broadcast mentality.Feb 10
Joe Mandese - Wow, now I am
scared. Thanks, Josh. But is it that much worse than what the Great, and Powerful Google already has tabs on? I wouldn't be surprised if they're trailing the biometrics of my keystrokes even as I type
this.
Feb 10
Josh Lovison - I'm not worried about Google. I'm worried about everyone else. ;-)
I actually trust Google a great deal with my information, and WANT them to build a comprehensive profile of information, as long as it stays within Google and I can access and modify what information is stored (which they do, more or less).
In the past six to eight months, Google has gone from being a really cool company to my favorite company. They are buying up all the right companies, building out the right tools, and starting the right initiatives (i.e. 1Gbps fiber to the home!!). My problem is that they have a "throw it at the wall and see if it sticks" approach to development, and that ends up hurting a number of their initiatives when they haven't thought through the user experience carefully enough.
Buzz may be one of them.
I actually trust Google a great deal with my information, and WANT them to build a comprehensive profile of information, as long as it stays within Google and I can access and modify what information is stored (which they do, more or less).
In the past six to eight months, Google has gone from being a really cool company to my favorite company. They are buying up all the right companies, building out the right tools, and starting the right initiatives (i.e. 1Gbps fiber to the home!!). My problem is that they have a "throw it at the wall and see if it sticks" approach to development, and that ends up hurting a number of their initiatives when they haven't thought through the user experience carefully enough.
Buzz may be one of them.
Feb 10
Laurie Sullivan -
"... as long as it stays within Google," really, please, do you actually believe that can happen?
Feb 10
Josh Lovison - They do a great job keeping data in-house. Google
has never sold my information, spammed me, or had a data leak I'm aware of that was the fault of Google's servers up until the recent China issue. They were the first email service to implement the
option of SSL for the entire email session, to prevent session-stealing MITM sniffing attacks.
Of any corporations out there, I most trust Google with my data.
Of any corporations out there, I most trust Google with my data.
Feb 10
Joe Mandese -
Interesting, because you can feel like you're having a conversation with one or some, but there may be many more listening in. Or like you said, "like Twitter on steroids."
(Re. 140Plus, is this unlimited capacity?)
Feb 10
Twice, I started to jump in and both times it skeeved me, as Josh so eloquently put it. I'm afraid at some point the gates will fly open and every sordid detail of my life will go viral.
New meanings to Buzz Kill.
@Nina: We always knew you were living a life of sin.