Slashdot Mirror

There are a ton of Google services. I think the ones that would
surprise most people are:

• Google Health
• Google Trends
• The Google Pack
• Aardvark

Then of course, there's their non-Web site features. For example,
they have a VC group called Google Ventures; a whole series of public
policy and government-related initiatives such as their work with enabling
public Q&A and CitizenTube, YouTube's public
policy blog about "developing trends in the use of YouTube by news
organizations, activists, politicians, and governments."

They're also a major developer of FOSS. Sometimes this takes the form
of giant systems like Android or Chromium, but just as often, it's
little things like their new Image format, WEBP (my
analysis of WEBP for screenshots, here).

Google does so much that they really do have to mercilessly kill
things like Wave and GOOG-411 when their either outlive their planned
purpose (like the latter) or don't achieve critical mass (like the
former). Otherwise they'd be buried under an avalanche of
half-finished products.

I think Buzz targets people who desire a very simple interface. It seems to perform a lot better on my slow machine than Facebook but is negligible on my main box. Honestly I haven't experienced any Spam on Buzz at all. Don't you have to follow the Spam bot or hacked account to get the Spam?

It's missing a lot of options, I guess time will tell if that is the intent or merely TBD yet. I do like how it's integrated with Google Reader. I share a lot of my news offerings with my followers. I don't like that it wants me to integrate with Picassa. I simply have too many Google contacts (some Slashdot readers I've never met!) to have them looking at my pictures!

So the one thing that Buzz has over Facebook is Aardvark. I signed up for that three or four days ago and have asked a question (with very positive results) and answered a few questions. I didn't get quite what I wanted out of answering questions although I think the people that answered my question did a pretty good job. How this is different from Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers seems to be that it's tightly integrated with Buzz and GChat. Also it actively finds things for you to answer. I'm guessing what Google has with mining your e-mail and chats and searches it will use to locate experts for your questions and also pair you with better questions you're more capable of answering. A lot remains to be seen as to whether or not this is an actual beneficial addition or some more of the bloat a Facebook application would have to offer one.

Yes, I have already made two book purchases off of those suggestions from my question. Note that a problem with GChat caused two of my questions (which I tried to designate as separate) get slotted into one question. I could just hear the software thinking: the second question is about authors, he must be continuing his thought.

Personally I'm not leaving Facebook for Buzz. But I'm not decommissioning Buzz. I'm keeping it as a sort of News social network much like The Auteurs and Afternoon Records Community are for my movies and music respectively. Granted none of these niche networks get as much time as the all encompassing Facebook, they still exist harmoniously in the bag of sites I visit. I recognize I'm probably an outlier though.

I think Buzz targets people who desire a very simple interface. It seems to perform a lot better on my slow machine than Facebook but is negligible on my main box. Honestly I haven't experienced any Spam on Buzz at all. Don't you have to follow the Spam bot or hacked account to get the Spam?

It's missing a lot of options, I guess time will tell if that is the intent or merely TBD yet. I do like how it's integrated with Google Reader. I share a lot of my news offerings with my followers. I don't like that it wants me to integrate with Picassa. I simply have too many Google contacts (some Slashdot readers I've never met!) to have them looking at my pictures!

So the one thing that Buzz has over Facebook is Aardvark. I signed up for that three or four days ago and have asked a question (with very positive results) and answered a few questions. I didn't get quite what I wanted out of answering questions although I think the people that answered my question did a pretty good job. How this is different from Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers seems to be that it's tightly integrated with Buzz and GChat. Also it actively finds things for you to answer. I'm guessing what Google has with mining your e-mail and chats and searches it will use to locate experts for your questions and also pair you with better questions you're more capable of answering. A lot remains to be seen as to whether or not this is an actual beneficial addition or some more of the bloat a Facebook application would have to offer one.

Yes, I have already made two book purchases off of those suggestions from my question. Note that a problem with GChat caused two of my questions (which I tried to designate as separate) get slotted into one question. I could just hear the software thinking: the second question is about authors, he must be continuing his thought.

Personally I'm not leaving Facebook for Buzz. But I'm not decommissioning Buzz. I'm keeping it as a sort of News social network much like The Auteurs and Afternoon Records Community are for my movies and music respectively. Granted none of these niche networks get as much time as the all encompassing Facebook, they still exist harmoniously in the bag of sites I visit. I recognize I'm probably an outlier though.

I think Buzz targets people who desire a very simple interface. It seems to perform a lot better on my slow machine than Facebook but is negligible on my main box. Honestly I haven't experienced any Spam on Buzz at all. Don't you have to follow the Spam bot or hacked account to get the Spam?

It's missing a lot of options, I guess time will tell if that is the intent or merely TBD yet. I do like how it's integrated with Google Reader. I share a lot of my news offerings with my followers. I don't like that it wants me to integrate with Picassa. I simply have too many Google contacts (some Slashdot readers I've never met!) to have them looking at my pictures!

So the one thing that Buzz has over Facebook is Aardvark. I signed up for that three or four days ago and have asked a question (with very positive results) and answered a few questions. I didn't get quite what I wanted out of answering questions although I think the people that answered my question did a pretty good job. How this is different from Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers seems to be that it's tightly integrated with Buzz and GChat. Also it actively finds things for you to answer. I'm guessing what Google has with mining your e-mail and chats and searches it will use to locate experts for your questions and also pair you with better questions you're more capable of answering. A lot remains to be seen as to whether or not this is an actual beneficial addition or some more of the bloat a Facebook application would have to offer one.

Yes, I have already made two book purchases off of those suggestions from my question. Note that a problem with GChat caused two of my questions (which I tried to designate as separate) get slotted into one question. I could just hear the software thinking: the second question is about authors, he must be continuing his thought.

Personally I'm not leaving Facebook for Buzz. But I'm not decommissioning Buzz. I'm keeping it as a sort of News social network much like The Auteurs and Afternoon Records Community are for my movies and music respectively. Granted none of these niche networks get as much time as the all encompassing Facebook, they still exist harmoniously in the bag of sites I visit. I recognize I'm probably an outlier though.

I think Buzz targets people who desire a very simple interface. It seems to perform a lot better on my slow machine than Facebook but is negligible on my main box. Honestly I haven't experienced any Spam on Buzz at all. Don't you have to follow the Spam bot or hacked account to get the Spam?

It's missing a lot of options, I guess time will tell if that is the intent or merely TBD yet. I do like how it's integrated with Google Reader. I share a lot of my news offerings with my followers. I don't like that it wants me to integrate with Picassa. I simply have too many Google contacts (some Slashdot readers I've never met!) to have them looking at my pictures!

So the one thing that Buzz has over Facebook is Aardvark. I signed up for that three or four days ago and have asked a question (with very positive results) and answered a few questions. I didn't get quite what I wanted out of answering questions although I think the people that answered my question did a pretty good job. How this is different from Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers seems to be that it's tightly integrated with Buzz and GChat. Also it actively finds things for you to answer. I'm guessing what Google has with mining your e-mail and chats and searches it will use to locate experts for your questions and also pair you with better questions you're more capable of answering. A lot remains to be seen as to whether or not this is an actual beneficial addition or some more of the bloat a Facebook application would have to offer one.

Yes, I have already made two book purchases off of those suggestions from my question. Note that a problem with GChat caused two of my questions (which I tried to designate as separate) get slotted into one question. I could just hear the software thinking: the second question is about authors, he must be continuing his thought.

Personally I'm not leaving Facebook for Buzz. But I'm not decommissioning Buzz. I'm keeping it as a sort of News social network much like The Auteurs and Afternoon Records Community are for my movies and music respectively. Granted none of these niche networks get as much time as the all encompassing Facebook, they still exist harmoniously in the bag of sites I visit. I recognize I'm probably an outlier though.

Sounds like Facebook wants to do something similar to Aardvark - http://vark.com/ Basically you ask a question and it finds people in your "network" and poses the question to them. You get pretty good answers from people around the world.