I like Buzz, Google's latest offering. You can follow me if you like this sort of poison.
My Buzz aggregates much of my Web 2.0 litter -- this blog, my shared items on Google Reader and Twitter. So, if you already subscribe to this blog's RSS feed (for example) you'll end up seeing the content twice if you also choose to follow my Buzz.
Buzz is Twitter-without-limitations: No 140-character limit. No ugly URL shorteners. No need to post pictures elsehwere. And no scrambled conversations, with bits lying all over the place (responses appear as comments in the same Buzz item). [See Dave Winer's post on must-have features for any wannabe Twitter-killer. Buzz has quite a few of them; but Winer doesn't like Buzz for other reasons.]
Buzz is a lot like FriendFeed, but without the latter's popular features such as groups and rooms. Buzz may be able to implement these features later (perhaps with Google Wave); when that happens, not only will Buzz become tremendously more interesting, it might even become indispensable.
In the meantime, let me just say that I'm very happy to be on Buzz.
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On the other hand, Wanderlust (at The NIT-K Numbskulls Page) would like Google to Buzz Off! Some of her complaints (especially about the stalkers) have now been addressed [via Patrix]. Her real problem, however, is with Buzz bringing in a whole bunch of people into her little e-mail corner; this problem cannot be solved, because this is a 'feature' -- a design choice.
2 Comments:
Interestingly, a NYT article some time ago -- that you linked to, I think -- cited Twitter's lack of "conversations" as a strength. If I follow you, I will only see your posts, not replies to your posts (unless I happen to be following those who reply). So flamers and trolls end up only poisoning their own pool, and don't get noticed by anyone else.
I'm not on Twitter and, given that I don't use gmail as my primary e-mail, doubt I will use buzz anytime soon -- but let's see...
I am amazed with Google Buzz. I can't believe it. You don't even need to spam, because Google shows the love like no one else.
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