My Thoughts on Google Buzz

There’s been a lot of ‘buzz’ today about the new Google project, “Google Buzz”, which was finally released to the general public today. Many people said this project from Google would start a revolution — that it would rival Twitter and Facebook as social networks. Now that it’s released, does it? Does it even come close to these superpower ocial etworking websites? Can it overpower them in a war for supremacy and take over the internet ? Read on past the break to find out!

Here’s my opinion on the “Buzz”. I use and absolutely ADORE Google, and they have been an innovation in the online world, what with a search engine used by MILLIONS of people around the world every day, its own email service, and even a service that where non-Google employees can make money, AdSense, but in my opinion, this project just doesn’t live up to the Google name. I loaded it up today and the first thing that popped up was a request from Safari to use my current location. “Now,” I thought, “this is weird.” I thought that only ‘Maps’ and applications on the iPhone and iPod Touch could request special permissions, and now a website can? Interesting. So I touched: Permission given. Almost IMMEDIATELY after I gave Safari permission to use my current location, ANOTHER window popped up, this time from Google, doing what? You guessed it, asking permission to get my current location. Just the aspect of giving permission to something and then be asked immediately after I give permission annoyed me. I wanted to yell at my iPhone, “YES! YES! I GIVE YOU PERMISSION! YOU JUST ASKED ME! PERMISSION GRANTED!”, but I couldn’t, as I was in my optometrist’s office. So in a calm finger tap, I confirmed once more to give permission to use my location. The very first screen that popped up after this was a Twitter mobile look-alike. I seriously thought that it was Twitter mobile for a second, until I saw the Google items in the corner. The next thing that came up was a map. Google is known for maps, but I really don’t want to see a map with the location of every “Buzzer” in my area, I only need a map if I use Google to search for a place, not to stalk every person in my town. So here’s the Safari iPhone specialized map with the exact location of all 5 “Buzzes” and all three “Buzzers” in my city. At this point I was scared. I sure as HECK don’t want anyone knowing exactly where I am or “Buzzing” from, that’s what Twitter’s GeoTagging is for. If you don’t want people knowing, turn it off!

So I type in my only “Buzz” that I will ever do, and here’s what I wrote: http://twitter.com/KaiSteelSmith. That’s it, nothing more, nothing less. So I guess by now you can tell that I’m totally opposed to this whole Google Buzz thing. You might not like what I think, but really, it wasn’t great at all, and if you want a GREAT social networking experience, use Twitter. That’s what it’s for. It looks so much better than “Buzz”, has been around for longer, and is actually popular and fun to use. Google, I’m sorry, but you need to work on this a LOT if you want a good rating from me. Maybe add some free hot coffee or something and I’ll be on your side.

My rating: 37/100.

Thank you for your time,

Kai Steel Smith

I hope to write to you again soon with my opinion. My fingers hurt like crazy now; I wrote all of this with my iPhone, which isn’t Buzz optimized…I bid you farewell.