Google Buzz – Bright, shiny objects!

: Image by Yes, i’m guccio via Flickr

In what was considered by many to be a typical Google April Fools Day prank, Google announced Gmail 6 years ago today…

“On April 1, 2004, Gmail was launched as an invite-only beta, instantly creating a revolution in the webmail space. Googles decision to keep their webmail invite-only kept spammers at bay, leading to the widespread perception that Gmail is spam-proof. While this notion is far from the truth, Gmail to this day does an excellent job of keeping unwanted emails out of your inbox.

Furthermore, by offering storage capacity of 1 GB per user, Gmail dwarfed the competitors which long held the notion that free webmail doesnt deserve decent storage. It was a one-two combination that made Gmail one of the most popular Google services, and solidified its reputation as a kind giant, which offers free stuff where others charge for it.

Right now, Gmail is one of the most popular webmail clients in the world, and besides the giants of old such as Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, perhaps the only one worth mentioning. It offers over 7400 MB of free storage to users, and it has been the foundation for other Google services such as Google Talk, Google Apps and Google Buzz.

Today, Gmail is six years old and its still one of the most important services from Google; many thought that email was dead ten years ago, but today, it doesnt really seem like its going away any time soon.” Source: Happy Birthday, Gmail!

Gmail [and it’s corporate version Google Apps] is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT tool I use for communication — no other product makes me more productive in the critical task of effectively managing email. Here are the top 7- reasons why I love it…

Available on any internet-connected computer, anywhere in the world, regardless of Windows/Mac/Linux
You can mess it up by using Outlook or AppleMail as a front end
Incredible amounts of storage so I can archive, but not delete
Insanely low price of free with a max of $50 per user per year for Google Apps Premium
Super effective keyboard shortcuts help me process email quickly
SEARCH — I can find anything in my inbox with laser-like precision!

What’s holding YOU back?

: Image via CrunchBase

At least two people in the Googleverse are underwhelmed with Buzz; me and internet maven Richard Scoble. Scoble bats first…

“Together with a lot of web workers, I depend on being able to skim through information sources quickly. Services like Google Reader are well-optimized for doing this, especially in List mode. (To turn on List mode, from the “All Items” view, click on “Show: List” in the blue bar at the top right of the screen.)

The List views in Gmail and Google Reader make it easy to look at the subjects of posts, and scroll through them quickly. Google Buzz, unfortunately, uses the threaded conversation approach of Google Wave, but without the tools for controlling what appears on the screen that Wave has.

I hope that the limitations of Google Buzz’s interface are just growing pains. Maybe the designers of Buzz didn’t anticipate that some posts would generate hundreds of comments. So let’s hope that they’ll give us the tools to use the service efficiently, or, as one commenter suggests, Google Buzz users might give up on it before it’s a week old.” Source: Google Buzz: Not Efficient? – WebWorkerDaily

On his own blog, Scoble goes on to say…

“OK, now I’ve had a bit of time to play with Google Buzz and everywhere I look I see a badly-executed copy of FriendFeed.

With two important exceptions:

1. Google Buzz actually has a lot of users and much better information flowing through its veins. There’s a reason that FriendFeed doesn’t have many users: it has some very anti-user features that retard user adoption (back when I was excited about FriendFeed I kept hoping that FriendFeed was going to fix some of their issues).
2. It has pretty nice location features built in, especially if you use Google Maps on Android.” Source: Google Buzz copied FriendFeed’s worst features, why?

If you want to read the rest of his rant, go to the source. Here’s my random list of pet peeves…

I don’t even like to get electronic newsletters because they’re a distraction; email is for email and needs to be segmented from social media…
Information comes into Buzz, but it can’t get out; no rss output for the things I want to share
Insufficient keyboard shortcuts; what happened to e for email like Reader? Google Reader is perfect for my needs — Buzz is like a fly droning around my head while I’m trying to concentrate…

What do you think?

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