Google Buzz Vs FAcebook

Most of these products on their own would struggle to get a market share, because you would need your friends to sign up to the products first.

But Google is smart, and makes all their services connect to just one account.

And with every new product that Google releases, a wave of giggly nerds jump into it, slowly increasing the number of people with Google accounts. Which slowly increases their user base.

Having just one Google account for all the services is smart I reckon. By signing up for one, you're instantly able to access all of them.
 
So if a friend of someone is convinced to sign up to Google for Calendar, they will be able to use Wave as well instantly for instance. Giving each new product a instant marketshare boost. And making each new product increase the market share of Google's other services.

For Google, it's really just a matter of, combing every one of their services into a nice tightly integrated package (which they aren't right now I think. A little integrated right now, but not as tight as they could be), and just work on getting more users. Eventually the platform could take off and really become popular.
 
I'd like to be able to just log into 'Google', and see everything I have for all my services. Like a summary of how many emails I have, or waves I need to read, or responses to youtube videos, or altered documents in Docs.

Or Google to use their existing services for their other services. Like for instance, how about a Google Wave for each blog post, or youtube video, or any discussion based element on any of Google's services.

All these services are great, they just have to be rolled up into one package, and worked on together as a whole. Then this could be an unstoppable platform. But the way all the Google teams seem so distant from each other just makes each product seem like it exists on it's own little island, making it seem like you're signing up to a whole new thing just to try it out.

If Google can get this fixed, they'll be right. This does have potential. Who knows what might happen.
 
First, this wasn't truly "opt-in," as Google's many subsequent rapid changes to their service make clear.

Second, it's WAY WAY WAY too tied to e-mail. E-mail is fundamentally a medium for private communication. It makes little sense to tie a social networking service so tightly to e-mail.

Moreover, the manner in which Google foisted this on all of us, whether we wanted it or not (in reality) was a horrible breach of trust. It's a HUGE, MASSIVE marketing blunder. I can't now simply and quietly try it out, see if I like it, and then move in to becoming a full user... precisely because it's tied so closely to my unique Google account and my gmail.
 
I don't get your concern. Go look at my Google Profile and tell me what scary information is revealed there that isn't revealed on any other social networking service. Who I'm following? You can see that on Twitter. Who's following me? Ditto. What I'm posting? I've told it what to share.

I get that there are some edge cases where people could be "outed" by Buzz, at least as it was initially rolled out, because it did some auto-following - but I went through within minutes and picked out the people I did and didn't want. And it wasn't because I was trying to hide anything.

Frankly, I think the privacy hoo hah is overblown. And now that Google has changed it so you have to manually add people from a suggested list, it's no different than any other social service - except that, unlike other social networks, it has a better suggested list for me because it knows who I communicate with (assuming I'm a regular gmail user.)

Since I only use gmail for backup, it isn't as useful for me as it might be. But that's a big incentive for me to switch full time to Gmail (rather than avoid it) as I want the additional information about my own network that it provides.
 
I agree that this is probably one of the best "features" added to gmail. However at the same time it also presents a huge concern to many. Beside the privacy issues which have already been beaten to death.

What about employers who fire their employees for using Facebook at work?

I can't recommend Gmail to professionals anymore. I used to think it was alright but after this move I can't support them anymore. Gmail is not email anymore. It's a social network.
 
"Google is a big clunky Microsoft-like company with strategy taxes, and they don't trust the web or developers, or each other, and their internal politics drive most of the decisions they make. To compete with Twitter is an easy sell inside Google, but to actually have the will to be cut-throat about it, that's another thing. It'll probably have to pay homage to Google Wave (remember that?) and therefore will have some elements that are completely incomprehensible. Twitter likely won't get killed, because Google's product will likely fall far-short of what's needed to get us all to think they can be trusted."
 
Many users attacked the company for violating their privacy.

Mr Jackson said: "We quickly realised that we didn't get everything quite right.

“We’re very sorry for the concern we’ve caused and have been working hard ever since to improve things based on your feedback.”

Buzz will now only suggest who users may like to include as their friends.

The site was also criticised because users of Gmail were automatically joined to it, but now the company has announced it will put a tab in the email facility to make it easier to turn off.

Buzz will also no longer automatically connect Buzz to Picasa photo albums and Google Reader items, the company said.

The changes, which will take effect over the next few days, were the latest Google had made to Buzz since it launched the product inside millions of Gmail accounts less than a week ago.
 
oogle Buzz, Google's new social networking service announced this week, isn't particularly original.

Just like Facebook and Twitter, it lets you share links, updates and media with friends. Even so, it'll probably be a moderate success.

Google Buzz is perhaps the most generic "social sharing" service launched to date. Users can enable the service in their Gmail accounts to share status updates, photos, videos and more with the group of people they e-mail most often.

Friends can also comment on these updates or "like" them to express approval.
 
There isn't a great deal of innovation here; early adopters will remember FriendFeed, an identical service acquired by Facebook last year.

While FriendFeed built a strong technology platform with an advanced search engine, it failed to achieve significant mainstream success. The site's features are instead being integrated into Facebook, where FriendFeed's talented engineers and Facebook's massive reach (more than 400 million users at last count) combine for maximum effect.
 
Good technology has value, but leading social networks require "network effects." Facebook is infinitely more valuable because all your friends are on it.

Facebook has leveraged this "critical mass" of users to stay ahead of new rivals, too. Why visit Twitter, you may ask, when Facebook has continually extended its feature set to keep up with its less popular competitor?
 
The story of social networks is in fact a story about network effects: How can a service reach a point at which there are enough users and content to be useful?

YouTube achieved this trick by providing embedded videos for MySpace and blogs, siphoning off members along the way. MySpace eventually chose to block YouTube links and build a rival video service, but the move came much too late to halt YouTube's rise.
 
Photobucket, meanwhile, became one of the world's largest photo sites by providing photo hosting to MySpace users; MySpace parent Fox Interactive Media (now News Corp. Digital Media) acquired the service in 2007.

There are arguably better video sites than YouTube and better photo hosts than Photobucket, but network effects tend to trump technical prowess in the social networking realm.

Google Buzz certainly isn't groundbreaking, but it will achieve critical mass virtually overnight. Thanks to integration with Gmail, the new tool is in the eye-line of the millions of users who obsessively check their inboxes for new mail. ComScore pegged Gmail at 176.5 million unique visitors in December.

What's more, Google Buzz uses data about those you frequently e-mail to automatically build a social network for you. Gone are the challenges of critical mass faced by virtually every new social networking service. In Google Buzz, your address book is your network.
 
Two forces are at work here, then: the immediate utility of a social service pre-populated with people you know, combined with the habitual behaviors associated with checking your email throughout the day.

A stream of fresh content from people you care about, served up on a site you visit every day, may prove to be an irresistible attraction -- although perhaps not a novel one.
 
Plenty of reasons stand as positive aspects of the Google Buzz enterprise as a new Buzz social network; eventhough its purpose is to kill Facebook the intention is also to strip users off Facebook as some predicted. Eventually, internet users will decide, and to help in conducting our research, we managed to collect 5 things to love about G Buzz and 5 reasons Facebook may win through.
 
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