Google Buzz, the biz is buzzin

via fastcompany.com

Pardon the pun but there has been a lot of buzz about Buzz. I know, it's not original but what do you want for nothing? :)

I see a lot of potential in this little add-on as Google makes another attempt at bringing the social networking concepts more integrated and more intertwined. They took a page right out of my very own playbook on a recent SharePoint project - people manage and live via their email client.

When I started at NWF my first project was launching an upgrade to the SharePoint platform that had been put in place but had slow adoption by the staff. I made the case that unless our organization was on Outlook and using Exchange as opposed to Groupwise we would never fully harness the integration services that the SharePoint platform has to offer. This sounds familiar, yes?

It was agreed, the application for email management was the key to bringing these tools together and hence I started an Exchange / Outlook migration because I wanted integration beyond plain email.

So no surprise at all to see the Google designed gadgets and new Buzz features which totally integrate with Gmail. But it has not been without some worry and pain.

I can't say that their claim to privacy and notification restraints are there yet, in fact when I was getting flooded with updates from total strangers tweet feeds via Buzz, my patience wore thin. To complicate matters I have my Gmail set up to notify me on my Blackberry when new mail arrives - - - that now includes Buzz whether I want it or not and I can't seem to stop it.

And another pet peeve I have is there seems to be no rhyme or reason when the updates to Buzz are delivered. I see them hitting the account in waves, not in real time.

And then of course lets not forget how Google totally forgot that eMail services has a perception of privacy - that went out the door with Buzz, oops. ZDNet goes into the legal aspects of this little flub but it says a lot about the maturity of the interface. http://government.zdnet.com/?p=7216

There are a lot of folks already jumping on the Buzz-wagon and rightfully so, it has tremendous potential and could become yet another easy tool and stomping ground for people in the Non Profit world to collaborate and share their causes.

My concern is centered around the time aspects - do I have time to scroll through yet another tool that collects and distributes observations, thoughts, comments, pictures, links . . . isn't that what Twitter is for? Is Buzz the new Twitter, the new light at the end of the tunnel? Or is the light yet another on coming train?

Posted via web from Michael's Ramblings . . .