Google Buzz
When a huge company like Apple or Google unleashes a new beast into the wild, the interwebs blows up. The tubes just can’t contain all the peanut butter being stuffed in from every angle – Twitter, Facebook, et al. And in this internet day and age, people are always looking for the Next Big Thing. It is my opinion that Google Buzz could be that thing. The following is my Why.
People have been asking really good questions about Buzz. Firstly, why a new product? Wave sucked. Hard. Why do we need a new G-app? Gmail and Gtalk work just fine. Don’t screw it up. Second, if we do get a new product, shouldn’t it at least be remotely intuitive to first-time users? And third, will Buzz be the Next Big Thing for which we’ve all been waiting and looking?
So, (1) Why a new (Google) product? This is two questions in one. The first is, why do we need a new web app to add to the internet chaos? And the follow-up is, why should it be a Google app? The first question almost answers itself. We need a new web app because there is internet chaos. If you’re like me, you use Facebook, Twitter, several media apps (Flickr, Youtube, etc.), a chat client of some kind (Facebook chat counts here), and everybody except Joe Paterno has an email address. Wouldn’t it be great if all these services worked together? Google answers affirmatively. Hence, we have Google Buzz. The second part of the question is, why do we need a new Google app? The fact that so many people use Google already makes it a prime candidate for this kind of service, not to mention they have the funds to partake in massive expenditures and undertakings. And they kind of own the internet, anyway. This last reason is actually why people may not want Google to be the King Aggregator. I, for one, disagree. I would love for Google, the one service that I’ve been using since high school, to be the hub for all things social on the internet.
The second question concerns the usability and functionality of the product. I would first like to say that Buzz is not Wave. Wave was a nightmare, and Buzz is no such thing. Also, was Twitter intuitive for everyone? Nope. Facebook? Nope. In fact, I know several people who had no idea how to use Twitter when they first started toying with it, telling me they kept trying to “write on my Wall,” to little avail, as you might expect if you’re a regular Twitter user. There is no universally intuitive product, web app or otherwise. Wave was a complete waste of time and energy, but Buzz, I think, is different.
Lastly: will Buzz be the next big thing? I think it has the potential to be the next big thing. I won’t say positively that it will be, but I do think it stands more than a snowball’s chance in hell. Whatever the next big thing is, it needs to have several aspectual features:
- localized content aggregation — Users need the ability to access all media without leaving the site on which they find the content.
- combinatorial email/chat modality — Everybody emails. A lot of people use instant message. Combine the two. Put them in the same place.
- blogosphere integration — Nearly everybody and their mother has a blog now. And most self-respecting companies do. Integrate all of those.
That’s what I think anyway. If it has those features, it will be able to fulfill what I think is possibly another, final requirement: it needs to work more or less seamlessly with any new web apps. If it has the first three aspectual features and is capable of fulfilling the final one when it becomes necessary, this mythical product will be the Next Big Thing. Google Buzz is dangerously close. Here’s to hoping for the best. And the Buzz.
Talk soon,
Neal
Twitter “Study”
A few quick, somewhat polemical thoughts on the recent “Twitter Study”.
I read this article a few days ago, and I have my suspicions about it. The terms “pointless” and “babble” are both vague and undefined. Similarly, in everyday conversation, how much of what we say can be distinguished from what they call “pointless babble” and “conversational”? It appears their only distinguishing factor is whether someone responded or not. I think it’s fair to say that leaves most of what we say to each other in everyday conversation out of the picture by referring to it as “pointless babble” in order to prove one’s already held assumption that Twitter is similarly “pointless.” The ambiguity and bias is clear just from their “categories.” I was disappointed by the “study” and by its relative fame on the interwebs. I hope they realize their blatant error and claim it was all a joke.
TweetDeck
It’s actually kind of funny. I started out using Twitter online and via text message, mostly just to update my Facebook status. Then I went away from that by severing the connection between Twitter and Facebook. Then, being a child of web 2.0, I had to find a ‘cool’ way of using Twitter, a kind of mash-up that would let me use Twitter without going to twitter.com. How faux pas.
I discovered a few. I remembered recently that I had actually tried Twhirl a long time ago, but didn’t use Twitter enough to justify it. Recently, I tried Twhirl again. I’ve stopped using it…again. But this time it’s actually because I like TweetDeck that much better. I’ve also tried Seesmic Desktop, but let’s be honest here, TweetDeck is just head and shoulders above all the others. The features, the look, the legibility of everything on the screen (something Twhirl could take note of), it’s all so much better than the competitors.
Now: granted: I have a little beef with TweetDeck because they won’t @ me when I @ them! No spite. There’s just a feature I want added (namely, the ability to see an “in reply to…” tweet linked inside of TweetDeck, instead of opening up in another browser tab). If you still use windows instead of tabs…welcome to the 21st century. You can leave your Windows ME at the door.
And here’s one more app you should be using if you’re a social website whore like myself. Ping.fm is an incredible site. It allows you to update all of your social websites with one click. You just tell it which websites and what to say, and presto! You’re done. I do it on my cell phone mostly, but if you want a desktop app for it, SocialAddict is the way to go. There’s one called Social Thingy or something, but it’s not nearly as good, just stay away.
In closing: I’ll just say this: I am kind of amazed at the growth of Twitter recently. I mean, yes, it’s popular, but we’re talking exponential growth for the month of March alone. We’re talking up 76% in a single month, and it’s growing at over 1300% annually, according to Mashable.com. That’s ridiculous. On a similar note, Facebook doubled its size in a mere 8 months from 100 million to 200 million. Social websites get made fun of a lot, and sometimes it’s pretty funny, but clearly, a lot of people are using them and enjoying using them enough to tell others who do the same, ad infinitum. I don’t know what the next big thing will be online, but it’ll have to be massive to compete with the likes of Twitter and Facebook now. We’ll just wait and see, I guess.
Talk soon,
Neal
iTweet
I tweet. A pretty good bit. So I thought it appropriate to suggest a few of the ways I like to experience Twitter. These are all really good sites/applications/etc. that I highly recommend if you tweet.
The first site is called Twitscoop (http://www.twitscoop.com/). It keeps track of what is being tweeted most in the Twitterverse. If you just twote about jambalaya, and you want to know if other people are doing that, too, then Twitscoop will tell you. Not only can you search, just like in Twitter, but it keeps a running tag cloud of the most tweeted twitterings.
The second site is called TweetStats (http://www.tweetstats.com/). If you have ever wondered how often you tweet, how many times you twote about your hernia in the past 6 months, or who you @tweet the most to, TweetStats will keep you in the know. About you. Or, about anyone else you might want to know about. Yup. It 
doesn’t require any password, just the username, so you can Twitterstalk all you want. That’s actually a good name for a website. TwitterStalk. I’m going to make millions on this, so don’t steal it.
The first app is called TweetDeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/). As a desktop Twitter app, it’s the best out there. Digsby is great, but TweetDeck is dedicated to Twitter. There are apparently plans to expand TweetDeck to include Facebook, too, but I don’t know how soon that will be, or if it will come to fruition. It includes Twitscoop in the app window when it’s maximized, which is updated in real time. 
Not to be confused with the fake kind. It will check your Follows all day long, and it refreshes the API (basically meaning: how many times you can update without going overboard) whenever it can, which is nice.
The second app is called TwitterFon (http://www.twitterfon.net/). This one is, right now, only for the iPhone/iTouch. I have used another one (maybe two), but this one has been the most stable and reliable for me, personally. It has a very simple, easy to use GUI, with only 4 buttons along the bottom: Friends, @, DMs, and Search. Additionally, it has its own web browser, so you can open links right inside the app. One problem I have noticed, though, has to do with the @ feature. If you click the Reply button, then decide not to, when you come back to tweet again, your @ info is still there. I don’t know if you will be bothered by this, but I am on occassion. Still a fantastic app, though!
So, there’s my two cents on a few Twitter applications/websites. I tried to use as many Twitterized verbs, nouns, and adjectives as possible, because I think they’re hilarious. My favorite is “twote,” the obviously past tense verb. Point is, these are great ways to experience Twitter, a great soical website.
Talk soon,