thanks bro! On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 3:49 AM, Peejay Reyes <[email protected]>wrote:
> spanx, since you're in to buzzing. > > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/technology/personaltech/18pogue.html?ex=1282107600&en=04a7bff0a46dc32f&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=TE-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M137-ROS-0210-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click > > > [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/> > This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. You can order > presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or > customers > here<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/technology/personaltech/18pogue.html?WT.mc_id=TE-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M137-ROS-0210-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click&ei=5087&en=04a7bff0a46dc32f&ex=1282107600&pagewanted=print#>or > use the "Reprints" tool that appears next to any article. Visit > www.nytreprints.com for samples and additional information. Order a > reprint of this article > now.<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/technology/personaltech/18pogue.html?WT.mc_id=TE-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M137-ROS-0210-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click&ei=5087&en=04a7bff0a46dc32f&ex=1282107600&pagewanted=print#> > > ------------------------------ > February 18, 2010 > State of the Art > Buzzing, Tweeting and Carping > By DAVID > POGUE<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/david_pogue/index.html?inline=nyt-per> > > Funny, isn’t it? The people who review gadgets generally aren’t the people > who buy them. > > After all, whom would you hire to write your tech column, Average Joe > Consumer or someone with advanced technical skills? > > Exactly. So tech reviewers tend to be devotees, the people who get > sweaty-palmed at the thought of 64-bit addressing and multiband radios — not > members of the target audience, the hundreds of millions who will actually > spend money on these things. That’s why tech blogs often savage easy-to-use > products that become huge hits (the Flip camera), but adore more technical > products that would overwhelm normal people (Linux). > > All of this brings us to Buzz, the new would-be > Twitter<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/twitter/index.html?inline=nyt-org>from > Google<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/google_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org>. > > > At its heart, Twitter is dead simple: you type little messages into the box > at Twitter.com — news, jokes, observations. Your messages show up on the > screens of your followers, whoever’s signed up to receive them. > > That simplicity has made Twitter a huge hit. But “simple” usually means > “limited,” and Twitter is no exception. Your messages can’t be longer than > 140 characters. There’s no text formatting. You can’t paste in photos or > videos. There’s no filtering of messages. No way to rank or rate people or > their utterances. No way to send messages out to canned groups of people, > like Family or Co-workers. > > Google Buzz overcomes all of that. It’s a lot like Twitter (with huge > helpings of FriendFeed.com thrown in), but there’s no length limit on your > messages. You can search for messages, give certain ones a “thumbs up” (you > click a button labeled Like as you do in > Facebook<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/facebook_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org>). > You can forward messages by e-mail. Comments and replies to a certain post > remain attached to it, clumped together as a conversation. You can link to > your Flickr, Picasa or > YouTube<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/youtube/index.html?inline=nyt-org>accounts, > making it easy to drop a photo or a video link into a Buzz > posting. > > You can also post messages to your Buzz account by e-mail, which is great > when you’re on the move. > > That feature works only if you send the message from your Gmail account, > which brings up a huge Buzz point: it’s deeply intertwined with Gmail, > Google’s free e-mail service. In fact, Buzz is an icon nestled right in > there between Inbox and Sent Mail. So you need a Gmail account to use Buzz. > No problem, unless you feel that Google has its paws on way too much of the > world’s personal information already. > > And if you are, in fact, a privacy fanatic, Google Buzz may not be the > social-networking tool for you. The service’s introduction last week caused > a ripple of horror through the paranoia-inclined. > > See, on Twitter, when you first start out, you’re not “following” anyone at > all, which would make it a very silent, boring place. So when you sign up, > Twitter shows a list of current members with a track record of being funny > or interesting — a starter set of people to follow. > > Google decided to go that one better: it would automatically sign you up to > follow the people you communicate with most often on Gmail or Google Chat. > > Unfortunately, that meant that anyone —friends, enemies, perfect strangers > — could see whom you communicate with most often, just by examining your > Buzz profile page. > > Google worked furiously over the weekend; in several waves of updates, it > fixed the privacy holes and wrote apologetic blog posts. Now when you sign > up, Google merely suggests people you might want to follow; you have to > approve or reject the suggestions. It’s also much easier to turn off Buzz > completely with one click. > > So now, Buzz isn’t nearly as much of a privacy concern. But don’t worry — > it’s still got plenty of problems to go around. > > The biggest one: confusion. > > In eliminating the Twitterish bare-bones simplicity, Google stepped right > splat into the opposite problem: dizzying complexity. At the moment, it’s > not so much Google Buzz as Google “Huh?”s. > > Why aren’t the incoming posts in simple chronological order, as they are on > Twitter? (Answer: Because every time someone comments on an older post, it > pops back up to the top.) > > You can connect Buzz to Twitter. But it’s a one-way, passive link: your > Twitter posts appear on Buzz — eventually — not vice versa. And there’s no > Buzz-Twitter linkage of followers or replies. And connections are available > to Facebook. > > When you see a good Buzz post, you can e-mail it to someone. But, weirdly, > you can’t pass it on to your Buzz followers (what, on Twitter, is called > re-Tweeting). > > Inconsistencies and poor design choices are everywhere. For example, a new > message can be Public or Private (addressed to one particular Buzzer). But > you don’t have that choice when you’re responding to a post — only when > you’re creating a new one. > > Meanwhile, Google committed a > kindergarten<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/e/education_preschool/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>-level > design gaffe when it put the Public and Private choices in a pop-up menu. If > there are only two choices, why not make them both visible as buttons? > > Sometimes, back-and-forths about a certain topic appear like the script of > a play. At other times, they appear as they do in Gmail — as a collapsed set > of file-folder tabs. Google says that there’s an algorithm that determines > which look you get, but from your perspective, it’s just inconsistent. > > Google’s recommendation system, meanwhile, tries to help you sort through > the tidal wave of conversation by automatically promoting or hiding messages > according to what it thinks you’ll find useful. So you may suddenly start > getting messages from people you’re not actually following (because people > you are following have liked it or commented on it). > > Conversely, messages that Google thinks aren’t that interesting get dumped > at the bottom of the page, collapsed into tabs. Unfortunately, they may > include messages from your boss, best friend or lover. There’s no way to > tell Buzz, “Never treat my wife that way.” > > You can also do Buzz from your > iPhone<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/iphone/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>or > Android phone (just not from regular cellphones; no length limit means no > Buzzing by text message). Since these GPS phones know where you are, you can > tap Nearby, and see other Buzz members on a map to see where they’re > standing. (Of course, they can also see you, which is a little creepy; you > can turn off this feature if you like.) > > On an Android phone, like the > Motorola<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/motorola_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Droid > or the Nexus One, you can even see what people are saying about a > particular store or restaurant that’s right across the street from you. That > feature has big potential. > > Then again, the whole Buzz-on-phone thing spells even more confusion. There > are three different ways to get at Buzz — from buzz.google.com, > Google.com<http://google.com/>, > or the Google Maps app for Android — each with a different set of features. > “There’s opportunity for us to improve that,” concedes a product manager. > > He’s not kidding. True, at this point, you spend a disproportionate amount > of your Buzz time absolutely baffled. But remember, it’s a Web site. It can > be improved at any time — and Google has been making changes at an > astonishing pace, even in its first week of operation. The company agrees > with almost all of the criticisms you’ve just read, and says that it will > address them soon. > > Funny, isn’t it? It’s a running joke that Google labels many of its > services as “beta” (meaning “in testing”) — and leaves that label in place > for years. And here’s Buzz, a truly beta product that isn’t labeled that > way. > > Buzz probably won’t make much of a dent in Facebook or Twitter or > FriendFeed. But because it’s nicely integrated with Gmail and Google chat, > because it has powerful and flexible features and because millions of Gmail > members can get in with a single click, Buzz will have its own following. In > other words, its complex design is a challenge that Google will have to > overcome — but it’s not enough to be a Buzzkill. > > E-mail: [email protected]. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "gimik" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] <gimik%[email protected]>. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/gimik?hl=en. > -- spanx' blog: http://spankyenriquez.blogspot.com/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "gimik" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/gimik?hl=en.
