How Google Buzz Is Disruptive | Hacker News Reader

How Google Buzz Is Disruptive

nytimes.com

60 pointsiamwil41 comments

This is the best argument I've heard yet that Buzz is more than just another of Google's me-too apps. The article makes a good case that syndication of Buzz content through open standards could make it a powerful competitor to Facebook. I'd be curious to hear other people's opinions on whether this is just hype or seems realistic.

FWIW, I haven't come on HN at all today because my account had Buzz when I woke up.

same here. it's like hacker news discussion only with people i actually know and care about.

Really? Why do you think this doesn't happen on Facebook for you and your friends?

Being open is an advantage in the long run, but I simply cannot see a compelling reason to use Buzz over Facebook or Twitter now.

Maybe because I don't have buzz in my account yet, the experience might be somehow better, but this is what counts initially, not openness.

I'm not sure it's got anything to do with being open, but buzz is awesome because it's like a first-class email. I get notified of responses, my comments get saved in sent mail, I can even download buzz over POP!

Putting the pieces together, when I write this comment I'll get a copy in my email in a few minutes. Win.

Yes, it surely is a Facebook competitor. At first glance, it looks to me like a Friendfeed inserted into a GMail - which I see like a simple, yet brilliant idea.

I keep finding that these new features by various internet companies are pushing me towards becoming a more social person. I'm not sure whether or not I'm comfortable with that, but suddenly things like my email are pushing me much more into the lives of tangential acquaintances - and the temptation is great to participate and reciprocate by bringing them more into my life by giving them more personal information, so I often do.

same here. actually, though, this is awesome. i only recently started using facebook (< 1 month). i was surprised by how cool it was to see friends i'd known but fallen out of contact with. i wanted to connect with them....but facebook is confusing and strange for me. plus, some of my closer friends, the ones i do keep up with, don't have facebook accounts, or if they do, they still responded over email instead.

email is where i connect with people, organize events, share. i mostly use it for work, but it's still what i go to for the few connections i have.

putting social connections in my email app has been awesome because it's allowing me to talk to folks in an app i'm already comfortable with. sure, everyone else has had myspace, aim, facebook, cellphones, even twitter, for ages. maybe it's just coincidence that i wanted to jump on the bandwagon now. or maybe a nerd company has finally scratched the social itch in the right way :-)

Google chat was there right in your gmail for ages, did you find it inconvenient for contacting old friends?

How is that even remotely similar. Because they both have contact lists? You can chat in both?

Ops, I overlooked that he has fallen out of contact ... yea then it's different.

google should've integrated chatroulette instead. just #?@! and giggles.

I remember when Google came out with Gmail and people were up in arms over ads appearing next to your email. Several years on and apparently it is OK to scan my address book and "auto-follow" a bunch of people I have in it.

The only thing I feel about Google Buzz is the violation of trust between me and the company. That is the real disruption.

It takes 10 seconds to unfollow, or 1 second to turn off buzz. I'd say it's just a convenient default for the rest of us..

I went searching through the Settings page to no avail before I gave up and Googled (irony) how to turn it off.

Besides the point though. They opt you into a service you didn't sign up for, and require you to take measured steps to preserve your privacy.

It's good for Google, whether its a good default or not is debatable.

Yes, it's being debated: http://www.techmeme.com/100210/p66#a100210p66

I had to click a button to enable Buzz. Did they change their sign-up policy at some point?

Same here - logged into Gmail and I was forced to choose whether to go into Buzz or old fashioned Gmail. Maybe they're tinkering with the process or something...

I'd have to agree, though, that the default of following everyone that you e-mail is a bit extreme, especially if everyone else can see it, too. Probably better to at least offer people a choice, either follow all, follow none, or manually select.

As far as privacy violations go, though, I don't see this one as very major. I'd expect that with all the complaining going on, this behavior will be changed very soon.

Me, too.

It was available for mobile users immediately, but it also didn't seem to be integrated into mobile GMail when I first looked at it.

I was just going to post saying I didn't think they invaded privacy because they don't post anything by default, so if you don't do anything with it it just sits there, but then I remembered that they _do_ link Picasa and Reader by default, so that's pretty bad, yeah. I know that it autofollowed and auto-subscribed some workmates with whom I don't want to share anything which wasn't explicitly intended for them.

So, Buzz would be fine if it just left everything alone, but I would be pissed if I actually used Picasa or Reader and my activity got published without my explicit approval.

I also want to control who can follow me -- if that option exists right now, I haven't found it. I don't want casual acquaintances or workmates to see things I post, even if they've subscribed to me.

By default, the people you follow are shown on your public profile. Couple that with the auto-follow bullshit, and suddenly you have a giant privacy flaw:

http://www.businessinsider.com/warning-google-buzz-has-a-hug...

And it's not as simple as saying "it takes 10 seconds to unfollow". The idea that Google would do something this stupid was so foreign to me that I didn't even realize it was happening until the second day I had Buzz enabled, when I happened to view my profile from another computer I wasn't logged in to. Once I realized there was a problem, yes, it only took 10 seconds for the actual act of unfollowing everyone and turning off Buzz. But it took me another hour to make sure I wasn't missing anything, that the off button actually turned it off, that the Reader integration didn't have it's own little privacy quirks, etc. This is a massive fail for Google.

I wish I could up vote you million times.

Wake up, sheeple!

I couldn't agree more. I use my GMail contacts as a general purpose address book so my brief trial of Buzz resulted in lots of stuff from people I don't really know outside of a very limited context. Does the reseller I e-mailed from GMail 3 years ago understand I'm seeing this information? I really doubt it.

It's disruptive all right; it fucking keeps bothering me about trying it right after i sign in to gmail. And it doesn't seem to take 'no' for an answer.

Turn it on, click the 'Buzz' label, scroll down to the bottom, and click "Turn Buzz off".

But what does it say about how disruptive it is when I'm seeing as much discussion, if not more, of 'how to turn Buzz off' as about trying the product.

Honestly, all that really tells me is that the 'off' button isn't as intuitive as it should have been.

I mean, they opted-in how many millions of people? It isn't surprising that some percentage want it off, or that they consider gmail a tool for JUST email, or they don't want all that in the way.

I personally was wary of it, but I really do like how easy the implementation is, and already see comparable traffic in Buzz to what I do on my Facebook -- only I have less clicks to get to it.

> Under the covers, though, this major product was built by a team of people taking a radical new approach to online publishing: Buzz is all about open, standardized user data.

If transparency and openness is what furthers Google's monopolistic goals, I say then let be it! I've been hearing more and more of the "Google will start to control everything" spiel. While that may be, it is also a happy conclusion that Google's wants happen to coincide with what the well-minded developer community desires for the future ahead.

I think this is more a "commoditize the complement" thing.

Chris Dixon had a good post on this recently: http://cdixon.org/2009/12/30/whats-strategic-for-google/

Friendfeeds are complements to doing things online - it's better for Google to have a whole lot of competitors in that space then just Facebook and Twitter.

At this point Buzz isn't a consumer product, even I (a geek) find it difficult. This can change as more applications pop up using the Buzz api, until then Twitter and Facebook are perfectly safe

ADD: the biggest issue with Buzz for me is the borders of privacy are not clear enough. On Twitter I'm in the public mode, on Facebook and email - in private (was).

Now I need to adjust my self-control system to not leak something unintentionally.

what part do you struggle with? seems like you just type in a box and submit to me, maybe I'm missing something?

The problem for me is that I don't spend that much time socializing online, so the simpler the product the better it for me, same for many people I know. Buzz in that respect is just another layer of complexity over email, that is what I find difficult.

EDIT: I know how to switch it off, but now I have to decide about that too :)

I mostly find it disruptive of my attention. Gmail is work. Facebook is play. I'll keep 'm separate, thank you.

>Google has taken open data standards to battle against a marketplace of competitors that are closed and proprietary to varying degrees. This is a very big deal.

In the same way that identi.ca beat twitter in the market?

that's really good to hear. a misleading title, thought the article would be negative. this is more like how it's disruptive to other social networks that aren't open. that's a good thing, openness always wins.

>openness always wins

What do you mean? If we take OS'es the most open one is the least used.

I'm not sure that's true if you look at growth instead of market share.

Also, how many open source components are used in other OS'es besides windows (which I'm assuming you're referring to here)? If you think of it that way, then most of OSX is open source too. And that goes for a lot of other platforms like mobile etc.

Also, in the server world open source wins by a far wack I think. All the different flavors of open source unix out there I'm sure dominate the web server market.

Well, I don't know that growth is a fair metric. Once you hit saturation point you can't grow much anymore. I was actually thinking desktops (windows, OSX, Linux. In that order).

OSX may have some BSD code but they have heavily modified it.

I agree that in servers open source might be ahead (but then, a lot of places are using Sun, Oracle and the like).

I like that Twitter has no advertising to distract me. Gmail does.

First a social site (facebook) turned into email. Then an email site (gmail) turned into a social site.

Would you all leave my email in peace.

All programs attempt to expand until they can read email. Those that do not are replaced by those that can -- Zawinski's Law

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