5 Gripes About Buzz. Or How Google Is Unstoppable.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi50KlsCBio]
First off, Buzz has some serious potential. Google gained an incredible amount of ground on Facebook and Twitter with this launch, and I do sense a shark-jumping moment for Facebook. Once the Google App ecosystem takes off, and social games and e-commerce get integrated, there will be a huge erosion in Facebook market share. People want one thing, one place to go, and Gmail is already mandatory.
- Lets start off easy here: Mobile. Google, you own the platform, how hard would it be to launch with an Android app? In the time it took to do the marketing piece on the mobile site, Google could have developed a full-fledged app. Instead I have an “above ground only” slow-loading mobile web page. HTML5 isn’t quite here yet – and Android 1.6 is not supported.
- Two way integration! Getting Tweets in Buzz is great, but I still have to go out to Twitter or TweetDeck to post. If I had the option to choose which networks my updates appeared on from within Buzz (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc), I would never have to leave Gmail… except for…
- Where is Facebook? They have a strong API and a straightforward authentication service. Connect to Facebook and never make me go there again. Aggregate and publish (see above).
- Buzz for Biz. I know it’s coming for Google Apps, but get it going already! How about full integration with LinkedIn – a CRM app would be a really interesting mash-up, as well as bringing all my connections into my address book. No more stale email addresses or phone numbers.
- OK, I saved crazy for last. Google Profile. I am the strongest believer in an open information society – if everyone knows everything about everyone, then we are all equal. I understand that’s a little overboard, but why should I hide my information when it will only make the web more relevant to me, and get us to our ultimate destination quicker. But with Buzz, your Google Profile went from obscurity to super relevant. So, quick inventory: Google has information about my friends, my browsing/search history (not to mention DNS info), my purchase history, my communications, the news I’m reading, and my documents. Now they want to know my age, sex, where I grew up? Are you crazy? Google is holding ALL the cards now. They keep repeating “don’t be evil” but you know what they say about absolute power… (did I mention my location?)
If history is any indicator of the future, Google will evolve and add features and services. They have done so consistently since inception, and people will choose convenience above all else, including quality and privacy. And I guess I’m one of them. See you on Buzz.
And if you disagree, see you in the comments!
Very nice article! I think I’ll play devil’s advocate on why they aren’t choosing to push content back out to other social networks. There is an advantage when you are pushing a new competing feature set into a product, that like you mention, has become ‘mandatory’ in a sense (Gmail). Google has a network, a very large integrated network, but not much visibility gained from the social media aspect. If Google can attract that type of free exposure, then it is another big push to allow them to control the experience and break the normally paradigm of these web experiences. I think they first are trying to say hey, let’s get more time share from the users in the space. At the same time, lets make the other venues seem less attractive and have people see the value of the integration Buzz will be providing to its end-users. To get your Facebook status anywhere else other than FB, you are reliant on 3rd party developers. Google has the upper hand in that, they don’t need to rely on the support of 3rd party developers, they have a suite of integrated applications that they can control and seamlessly weave these experiences together.
As far as Twitter, same thing applies. There is even more overlap and commonality between the two services. Google doesn’t want you to use Twitter. The only reason they are aggregating is that they need something to jump start your ‘buzz’. They will enhance this service over time to compete in this ecosystem vs coexist. Which makes sense as people are tire of ‘yet another social media app’ and are ready to move on to having that information be more useful. Part of that step is breaking the paradigm of these stand alone services that are duct taped together. However, Twitter has an advantage in that it is a very specific use. Mainly the concept of mass contact, like email blasts. You don’t care who follows you, you just want to get the word out. There is no real sensitive data attached to your account and you are perfectly content and encouraged to allow others to ‘re-tweet’ your tweets. There is still a wall of anonymity. Whereas integrating Google Buzz to such private information is a bit different in how people will perceive and use the service. The question is, is the value added from Buzz’s service enough to dethrone the paradigm that Twitter has set forth…time will tell. Even though people use Twitter to share their personal information, it’s real value comes from the marketing and advertising uses of it. I’m assuming that is what Buzz for Biz will hope to achieve.
As per the standalone Buzz app, yes, I agree, only because Buzz isn’t completely fleshed out yet and to introduce users to the basics of buzz and then have them relate that to how it is and will continue to integrate into 1) Google services and 2) 3rd party developers. Buzz actually should show in your native Gmaps application vs the mobile site. What Google does need to do however, is revisit their basic apps that this is to be integrated into and get better acquainted with providing offline access…heck ALL developers need to get on that train of offline access for their apps, all you need is a little bit of caching and background checking
Chris Ross
11 Feb 10 at 2:13 pm
I’m sure you are on the right track with why Google hasn’t jumped in with fb, and only aggregates incoming tweets.
My perspective is that if they lower the bar to entry they would have much better adoption. Once you had users in Buzz all day, managing their various public profiles, fb, rotten tomatoes, delicious, etc, then they would get more comfortable using the native buzz updates and those other networks would start to become less relevant.
I did play with the buzz integration in Maps 4.0, but as it is on my ‘work’ phone, it created an orphaned Google profile (no buzz for Google apps yet) – so a word of advice, don’t try it if your android phone is associated with a Google apps account!
Colin O'Donnell
11 Feb 10 at 2:39 pm
I generally don’t post in Blogs but your web log forced me to, amazing work.. beautiful …
Christopher Dawe
13 Apr 10 at 10:23 pm