Google Buzz

I caught most of Google's announcement yesterday via cnet's live blog of the event. I had not been aware that anything special was supposed to be happening. I am listening to TWiG and most of the focus is on multi-touch, the iPad, and things that happened last week (side note: this makes sense because I am listening to last week's episode), and it is hard to not wonder why they weren't pre-hashing this. A completely opposite approach to the iPad. Instead of over-hyping, they are flying low.

If you use web-based Gmail you probably noticed Buzz. In some ways it is just a crustier version of friendfeed. However, it has a couple great things going for it: integration with Google products and push on to Gmail users. Once my account got upgraded this morning and I saw what it was, I got really excited because it would probably get the luddites around me to start tasting serious social media beyond (or instead of) Facebook. Of course, they are probably just going to turn it off immediately, but here is hoping.

I enjoy and mostly agree with Jason Calacanis' blog post about Google Buzz. You can read it here. Please give Google Buzz a try. If you aren't sure how you would use it, drop me an email/message/comment/text and I can help you get set up. Give it a week (tweaking as you go), and THEN maybe turn it off if you still don't like it. My bet is on you getting hooked and wondering why you didn't try this social media stuff out sooner.

Also, follow me here. My big hope is that the Googlers figure out how to solve the problem of tech pundits downing out my real friends in these situations. Here's hoping.