Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Google Buzz: is it really buzzing?




Like many Gmail users, such us Mike Abundo, I got excited when the news about Google Buzz came out and had my first taste of it. What I like about it includes:

  • Having instant followers / following right away.

  • Integrate your various social networking profiles.

  • Receive notification at your inbox whenever someone response.

  • Easy integration of photos and videos.

However, as soon as I started using and configuring it, felt its disadvantage especially if you are already an active social network application user. This includes:

  • It can be spammy especially if the people you add are so active in applications like Twitter. Most of the time, I end up unfollowing them.

  • Redundant content. If you are an active social network user, chances are, you will see the same content getting posted. If the people you follow don't post original content that much, you will also feel a sense of silence in your buzz community (which is my situation now with FriendFeed).
  • Content duplication also happens where a feed appears twice (upper and lower part of your Buzz page).
  • Also have instances where I muteed a post then it suddenly appears again.

  • When using Internet Explorer, the view window does not adjust. An example here would be viewing a YouTube video like in this image.

It will be interesting though if Buzz will allow me to do the following:

  • embed Google Docs forms and files for sharing / editing with friends.
  • integrate Google Wave like features into Buzz.

How about you? What do you think of Google Buzz?