What Google Buzz Will Have to Fix Before I Use It More

Google Buzz has been the (insert pun here) for the last week. It’s been applauded, it’s been shunned. It’s been called everything from the next big platform to a copy of Yahoo! Update and Yahoo!..oh what was that name…oh yeah, Yahoo! Buzz!

How to Use Google Buzz

After playing with Google Buzz for hours while on break between lectures at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, I’ve realized that I can sum up how to use Google Buzz accordingly:

1. The initial offering of Google Buzz is integrated in to Gmail. Thought it might get separated later.
2. Initital user experience feels like Facebook, (in)complete with a stripped down, generic user experience.
3. Because if its integration to gmail, one can use gmail filters to segment data like Twitter lists.
4. You will get updates to both your Inbox and Your Buzz filter until you set filters. I believe the reason this is done this way is because some email clients – iPhone – aren’t set up to use the Buzz feature.
5. Syndication:  you can use tools like Ping.fm to syndicate messages to Google Buzz via Twitter or GTalk

At this point Google Buzz is, in the words of Jack Johnson, “another one just like the other one.” With my use of Ping.fm, Hootsuite, and FaceBook, I’ll use Google Buzz as just another syndication platform.

What Google Buzz Has to Fix Before I Use It More

1. Security: If you’re a Gmail user, you followed a minimum of 20 people whether you wanted to or not. And if that 20 was a mix of personal and professional contacts, then your life has been rudely integrated. I was following an ex-girlfriend and colleagues at the same time. Rumor has others who were in abusive relationships were automatically thrown back together. You can unfollow people, but if they followed you first, they could see you other social media profiles. I wrote a detailed post on Golden Technologies internet marketing blog about how to make your Google Buzz accounts  more secure.
2. Direct Communication: Once you’ve reset your email address to private, only those who know your email address can write you directly on a post. That’s because the only way to reply directly to someone on Google Buzz is to write “@(gmailusername)@gmail.com” and then Google modifies it to the Google Buzz profile. The downside of not having an email system dedicated solely to the social network platform like Facebook has.
3. Segment Data: Unlike Facebook where you can make your settings so only replies to your posts and replies to your comments are emailed to your inbox, Google Buzz sends it all. And it’s a little hard to set the filter so I’m afraid if anyone replies to me via Google Buzz will get filtered to the labels I’ve set up.
4. Engagement: Google Buzz is connected to Picassa, Flickr, GTalk, and Twitter as in, “you can syndicate to Google Buzz,” you can’t reply back through those channels. Once there’s a platform that lets you do that, they platform will get my devotion.

Google Buzz instantly popular because it is piggybacking off of the hundreds of millions of Gmail users. Overnight, Google Buzz had over 100,000,000 users – whether they wanted to use it or not. The amount of users offset the fact that the application is three years behind the times.

The question will be whether or not the Google Buzz’s reach and integration can be improved in time to counteract the building relationships that are being formed between Yahoo!, Facebook, Microsoft, and Linkedin, but whether it will be integrated soon enough anyone for anyone to care.

(photo credit: Ben Tremblay via Flickr)