f13.net

So far it seems like Wave done for the masses. It's not as clunky, and you can mix up just about any kind of media in there. It's not just a "social network" thing...

Thoughts?

My first thought when I saw it was 'Google have stopped trying to be Microsoft and are now trying to be Facebook'.

I thought so, too.  I looked but I'm not really interested in having another thingy, so I quickly looked away.

This is precisely what I was thinking, save the mafia wars hooks. I think google still has dreams of global domination though...and its getting scary (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig-our-experimental.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/MKuf+%28Official+Google+Blog%29)

I had a go, I don't think I got all the features. It seems more like twitter than FB from my quick play with it.

The main problem I see is that people are already deeply entrenched in FB, and getting them to migrate requires enough other people to be using Buzz to make it worthwhile, which won't happen until people start using it. A vicious cycle sort of.

Masses being more than the 25 people that can actively participate in a wave before it slows to a crawl?


There's nothing scary about Google, it's just a corporation. What is scary is how so many people blithely accept the Google mantra of "do no harm" and trust the company more than they would any other. The people running Google may indeed be very nice people who want to profit without the usual evil, but it's a fucking corporation. Eventually the hippies will retire or be bought out and replaced by more efficient evil overlords.

I always looked at wave as a collaborative work tool, not a social tool.

EDIT: I just realized you guys are talking about a new product I had not heard of yet.

Why the heck would I want my Facebook in my Gmail account?

buzz for phones was far more interesting, if not a stalkers fiesta.

Its twitter but threaded.

I like it.

One could say the same about peanut butter in their chocolate, but then the analogy breaks down because peanut butter + chocolate = awesome. gmail + buzz = buzzkill.

That's what I don't like about it. I'm not a Twitter fan, but Twitter works by throwing all these diverse fragments of information at the reader at the same time. Threaded, it's like a hashtag search taking up space in the middle of your otherwise diverse fragments.

To me it seemed like yet another way for cyber exhibitionists to undress in public.

This is just another thing they're trowing at the wall to see if it sticks.   If more of their tech starts to ever become attractive to the mainstream, I'm assuming they're going to be happy that they have these plans in the can, so to speak.  It's not just that they're trying to be Facebook or Microsoft.  They're trying to be the phone book, the mailman, the atlas, dictionary, shopping center, and now ISP.  Plus many other things that are in various stages of development.  They don't expect any one of these things to be a killer app, they just expect that eventually they'll chunk enough darts to get enough killer apps to solidify them as a ubiquitous, utilitarian, mega-monster.  He's a benevolent monster though.  So fret not.

Uh, yeah. Right. This megacorporation is going to be different.

This.  Seeing buzz icons near your location on google maps through the mobile buzz page is pretty cool.  But also creepy.  It would be less creepy if posts were just by first name and not full name.

I also want to punch the people cluttering the map with "taking a break from work!" messages.  And I guess with their full name and current location my fists can pay them a visit.  Lucky for them I'm weak and afraid to go outside.

You fell in the sarchasm.

If you don't want Buzz replies to show up in your inbox (I much prefer they remain behind the Buzz tab, personally), you can set up a filter:

Has the words:  label:buzz

And tell it to "Skip Inbox" (and, if you like, set label to "Buzz Updates" or whatnot).

What a pain in the ass.  They should have made it separate from Gmail and more intuitive.  I expect better from Google.

Yep. Feels like another 20% project. And their batting average for both adoption and interest is pretty low.

They can do all this shit because their core business is so strong. But I really wonder what they do well beyond that.

That's half of the problem I have with Wave (especially pre-Chrome extensions).  It's off in its own thing and so I never remember to check it.  With Buzz inside Gmail, I clear my inbox, move down to Buzz and check what's going on there, and then I'm out of Gmail.

I guess it is a different behavior from logged chats so I can see how people might be annoyed by the "Goes in inbox" behavior.

Overall, I like it more than Facebook, which I hate with the passion of a thousand suns, and out of the gate it's about as useful as FriendFeed, which is pretty good.

+1

Oh snap. After all the fellatio of various sorts in the iPad thread I have trouble catching it. :oh_i_see:

Why the Facebook hate?

Joke post?

Has to be.

Facebook sucks, with shitty performance, constantly shifting layouts (which makes people complain and fill my feed with even MORE shit) and annoying privacy policy. The only thing interesting on Buzz around me was this mid thirties mom  who's shilling for this funny or die ripoff that is neither original nor funny. I gave her some suggestions for she promptly labeled me an asshole. Good times.

Best laugh of the week.  Thanks, Straz, I needed that.

There needs to be a way to mute specific streams of my friends, without removing them outright. Specifically, twitter.

It seems OK, as far as social networking goes, and fills a similar niche as facebook. It seems neat and I'll probably use it a for a bit to post pictures and random shit, but right now it's just completely filled with two of my friends checking in via twitter at every single fucking place they go.

It's really fucking annoying, which is why I don't follow twitter, and there appears to be no way to block twitter, either overall or by friend, from buzz. So, I'm pretty much done using it.

Edit: my friend informed me that the only way to do it is through filters, but not on buzz, on your mail inbox. No, sorry. I'm done with this shit.

I've been filing bugs against the team about being able to filter syndicated content (twitter) from specific / all users.  I also hope to convince them that a mode where replies are not auto-expanded would be nice.  They're kind of crazy busy in the aftermath of launch, but I bet we'll see continuous UI improvements over time.  In the mean time, I guess you can try to shame your excessive-twittering friends into twittering less or not syndicating ^^

One of the fun things about all of this is that all buzz feeds are exported via xml+atom and you can subscribe for push notification in realtime (seriously, < 2 seconds from somebody hitting enter on a new buzz post until your server gets a push delivery) via pubsubhubbub, which has got me tinkering with webapp coding a bit to play with building custom frontend/backend stuff.

buzz apis: http://code.google.com/apis/buzz/documentation/
pubsubhubbub: http://code.google.com/p/pubsubhubbub/
bradfitz's notes: http://www.google.com/buzz/bradfitz/PPjHXDhANAC
my notes: http://www.google.com/buzz/swetland/4xvNXhz1JWi
on buzz apis and vision: http://www.google.com/buzz/dclinton/XxER6oP4WGe

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess farmville?"

 :why_so_serious:

Yes please.

But I can hide farmville once and it's gone for good, for ever.