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Google Buzz — First Reactions

Posted by kdawson on from the what-it-is dept.

Google announced Buzz today, as we anticipated this morning. CNET has a workmanlike description of the social-networking service, which is integrated into gmail. CNET identifies a central obstacle Buzz will have to overcome to gain traction: "The problem, however, will be the increasing backlash Google is seeing from the general public over how much data the company already controls on their online habits." Buzz is being rolled out over the next few days so some people will see a Buzz folder in their gmail, but most won't yet (this Twitter post explains how Safari users can get an early glimpse). A blog posting up at O'Reilly Answers points out some of the distinguishing characteristics of Google Buzz — one interesting one being its ability to post an update either publicly or privately, at the user's option. This design choice places it between the public-by-default Twitter and the private-by-default Facebook. Lauren Weinstein sounds a note of caution about the inherent privacy risks of Google's method of filling out initial friend profiles by automatic friending.

5 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmm... by socceroos · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I went to buzz.google.com and signed up, but my Gmail account didn't change at all.

    I'm willing to give GBuzz a go, but I don't think I'll ever see myself getting caught up in social media networks - especially with Google's recent views on privacy.

  2. Re:Backlash? by MichaelSmith · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It just occurred to me that if I create a google account from a normal computer I can use any name for myself that I choose. But a phone running android must use my real name (its in the contract for the phone) so android may be a way to associate made up identities with real identities.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  3. Watch The Terminator movies again by kriston · · Score: 5, Interesting

    All I can suggest is to watch "The Terminator" movies again.
    Google's explicit goal is to collect all data possible and index it for the benefit of humankind. This includes artificial intelligence--indeed a senior director of Google is an acknowledged AI scientist. The application of AI to the corpus of all data possible is profound. The digitization of books, the collection of browing habits, the analysis of web sites, and the analysis of all GMail users' email data, compounded with myriad other data sources could provide an interesting advanced intelligence. Even if it's just a Deep Blue style of brute-force thinking, the corpus upon which this "hive mind" will draw is profound.
    Google is the real Skynet.
    Nobody knows what will happen, but it's going to be profoundly amazing.

    --

    Kriston

  4. Re:Public vs private by MarkWatson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have to disagree with you:

    Google performs statistical NLP on your data, and automatically finds good ads, etc.

    As per Google turning over your data to the government: we are probably close to total government access to everything we do, so I would chill out about stuff that we are helpless to do anything about (unless you are going to stop using the Internet).

  5. Re:Public vs private by D+H+NG · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Google is the only search engine with the balls to refuse a government subpoena to turn over its search records. Not Microsoft, not Yahoo!, not AOL.