Legal Research

More Buzz - Exit Stage Left

By scott

Google’s attempt to get in on the social media updating and sharing space continues to make news ? not least of which a couple of lawsuits that accuse Google of serious privacy law breaches.

I personally really want to like Buzz, honest, I do. I can also see how it could become both good and useful. But so it is easy to look at the whole exercise as a lesson of how to really fuck something up. Then again this also maybe too simplistic a view. Around 32 million Gmail users got Buzz a couple of weeks ago and registered over 9 million Posts and Comments within its first couple of days according to Mashable. These are not numbers to be sniffed at. If it keeps up those kind of numbers then even the moans of the like of me and other ‘geeks’ won’t stop this from making a big splash.

But, I do have some further moans.

Profile: ‘ a concise biographical sketch’ (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

Google has now added a tab within the Gmail settings where users can choose to not show Google Buzz in Gmail, not display those who they are following and those who are following them, and also an option to totally disable Buzz. Now this final option ” will disable Google Buzz in Gmail and delete your Google Profile and Buzz posts. It will also disconnect any connected sites and unfollow you from anyone that you are following.”

Yes, whilst you may have had a Google profile set up long before Buzz arrived ? I did - they are now apparently as inseparable and IE and Microsoft’s OS’s of old. If you want to keep your profile, you have to keep Buzz. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. Add to this the default view for anyone visiting your profile is now any ‘buzz’ content you may be sharing, not the ‘profile’ information (no choice in this ? and we now know Google doesn’t really think about choice when it comes to Buzz).

Mobile Access

I can’t use the mobile version. Why? Mainly because every time I try and post and despite my clicking on ‘don’t allow’ when https// m.google.com asks that it ‘would like to use your location’ Buzz still insists on doing exactly that if I do post. This is despite it also saying ‘Location is not available’ when presenting me with the IU for posting an update.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against location updates ? great for when at restaurants, pubs, sights etc, and when the choice is mine, BAD when it is Google trying to tell people where I am when I have already said no, don’t and when it’s service itself has lead me to believe it is honouring that.

This is a shame as it is here when coupled with Google maps integration etc that this could be a really useful tool and a serious threat to the likes of Loopt and Four Square.

Turned off

Whilst I haven’t disabled it, I’ve turned off sharing everything in Buzz for now except for any status updates I may decide to make (such as one for this post). Those aside I don’t have enough levels of trust for the product or (simple) control over what I might wish to do with it to use it as is. Amongst friends, I don’t think I’m alone in coming to this conclusion. This may change. Google certainly has the ability and the people to make this work. But I go back to the fact that they bought a product that could have challenged Twitter, Jaiku, and instead of developing it, left it to rot. Buzz could seriously do with a bit more Jaiku in it frankly.

Full post as published by Information Overload on February 22, 2010 (boomark / email).