Core77

#Sick of @Sharing Yet?

By Willem Van Lancker - February 11, 2010

in Tech

With Google's release of Buzz yesterday, its latest Gmail experiment, I find myself feeling like we have entered a state of total social networking saturation on the internet, one that actually inhibits the ability for us to connect and share with friends.

Google Buzz is a Gmail app that resembles an RSS feed of status updates for a browser or mobile device. It feels like Facebook's status updates embedded into your email with "likes," the ability to respond directly to a posting, and private/public messaging. The main selling point on Google's end, based on their keynote live coverage here, is the utilization of your Gmail contacts to share and communicate, essentially creating a list of followers you already know. Also available, the first version Buzz will be able to post updates from Twitter but will not post to Twitter, another interesting cross platform integration.What doesn't click for me with Buzz is the idea that Google believes I would actually want to share anything with my Gmail contacts. If Facebook's purpose is to connect with real friends and Twitter to connect with random people, organizations, and celebrities, then I have always looked at Gmail as a place to have more serious correspondence. Looking at list of who I am "following" on Buzz, I am finding it hard to think I would really care to share information with any of them at all.

The other piece of Google Buzz that feels redundant and odd, is its interaction (or lack of) with Google Wave and Google Latitude. For those not familiar, Google Wave (released this past fall as a preview) was billed as Google's future collaboration and sharing interface that combined all Google Apps into an innovative mail-like platform. Though it was always my suspicion that Wave was eventually going to be melded into Gmail (and Buzz perhaps a stepping stone), I did not see it first implemented as s stale Facebook-like update tab.

What I fear we are approaching is a point where while we are all trying to "share" and "be together" on the web we are instead posting the same status to the same twenty-five people multiple times by linking our Buzz, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr (the list could go on) accounts together, essentially creating the equivalent of internet garbage. In an industry that's been built on the creation of innovative interactions and experiences, lately all of these companies have felt the need to replicate each others services almost exactly. Why can't they instead focus on the refinement of what makes each of them unique and successful and increase market share and profit through true product innovation?

Image: Reuters

o

Favorite This
Q
5

Comment

Comments

Bernardo

14 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

I had the same reaction when I first heard of it. I thought: "Crisis in the Social Media world!"

But I must say that I found it to be useful after finding out that my shared items on Google reader can go directly to Buzz on 1 click. My shared items on Reader were never read by other people, and neither did I read other peoples shared items. I think the sharing aspect of reader never worked very well. But now, although Buzz is basically copying other system's sharing behavior, it has a different flow of information. And I don't see the other systems handling this type of information this well.

Twitter has a limit of characters, so you always have to "tweet" URLs when sharing a blog post or a video, while in Buzz you can basically share the entire post or video inside it's own interface - like an RSS reader.

Facebook, although can handle outside video, also relies on outside links for a lot of shared content. Also, in my opinion, Facebook is for sharing information that is more personal. So I wouldn't be sharing a bunch of posts that I found interesting a long the day because some friends would probably not like it, and their only option would be either to hide all of my posts, not seeing personal posts that would keep us in touch, or to delete me as a friend.

In Buzz, since the flow of information is like an edited news channel, someone can just stop following me but keep up with my personal life on facebook or even send me an email for more serious matters.
!Report as spam
J. Merino

14 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

I totally agree, however I think it is a low-risk situation for Google. I doubt much design and development was really put into Buzz and since their is no physical product they can offer it without much sacrifice.
!Report as spam
Felix Varejao

14 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

I agree. Now we have everything, everywhere with everybody.
That's no interaction, that's exteraction.
!Report as spam
ziggy

14 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Very well said.
I was sick of the multitude of "sharings" about a year ago.
Why so many systems? Digg, delicious, tweet, retweet (no idea what this even supposed to be), facebook, twitter (bubble to burst very soon, massive respect to any1 who earned any money from it) now buzz... little late are we? Exhausting! :)
!Report as spam
Jennifer Moline, PsPrint

14 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

I wholly agree with your suspicions. I linked my Twitter to my Buzz to experiment, and sure enough, that means sharing the same info! I'm sure most people will link accounts -- otherwise, how do you differentiate what you want to share and where?

I'm curious as to what the business implications are. After all, how many businesses have gmail accounts?
!Report as spam