Google’s new service, Google Buzz, has been hailed as the the greatest thing to arrive in social media. Ben Parr at Mashable claims that Buzz “has dropped a nuclear bomb whose fallout will permanently alter the social media landscape.” This is the funniest thing I have ever heard.
Let’s take a tour of Google Buzz together, to see if this thing is even worth using.
TL;DR? It’s not. Google isn’t interested in a new social media platform, Google is interested in selling better AdWords. If they were serious, they wouldn’t have tied the service to Gmail. Google Buzz is hampered by Gmail’s small user-base and the unwillingness to cannibalize Gmail’s core functionality.
1. I am the ideal Buzz user.
Yes, that’s right. I have a Gmail account and a Google profile. I have a Facebook and Twitter. I have a blog and I want people to read it. I use Google Reader to manage RSS feeds, and I spend a lot of time copying URLs from Google Reader to post them on my friends’ Facebook walls.
2. I really want Buzz to work.
Again, since I’m no stranger to RSS feeds, I would love to have one centralized place where I can check my blogs, Twitter, and Facebook all in one place. I’d love to be able to share this funny picture of a cat with all my friends, without having to leave my browser window.
3. I never use Gmail.com.
I seem to be a dying breed of people who use something called an “email client.” It allows me to check all my email accounts all at once, organize them, and save permanent copies on my computer.
Don’t get me wrong. Online email access is essential, but only when I’m not at my own computer. Although Gmail’s webmail is a shining example of how to do mail right, it’s still not going to replace my favorite client. This brings me to . . .
4. Gmail is not my preferred email account.
I’m a full-time student. When I check my email, I’m checking my university email. In fact, I have my school email, my email for this website, Gmail, and my ISP’s email.
I know I’m not alone. The Internet has evolved in such a way that our email is not our sole online identity. Even if I wasn’t at school, I’d have my work email running on my desktop and I might check my personal email during lunch.
(Right now, someone is thinking, “Dude, Gmail can use POP3 to import all your email from other accounts! How else can you expect Gmail to read your email, keep it forever, and then develop the targeted ads that makes them billion$?” No. Just . . . just no.)
5. I don’t know anyone who uses Gmail.
Back in the day, a Gmail address was a sign that you were a part of the Internet Elite. You needed to be invited in. A Gmail account meant you knew somebody who knew somebody. Of course, Gmail is open for anyone now, but I still don’t know that many people who use Gmail. Remember, Gmail’s user-base is miniscule compared to Facebook. But still, let’s play devil’s advocate and assume everyone I know has a Gmail account.
6. Gmail is not my address book.
By the time I got Gmail, I had squirrel-like piles of contacts all over the Internet. AIM. Hotmail. ISP’s mail. My cell phone. So I sat down and I consolidated all my information into Apple’s Address Book program. Sure, I could export this to Gmail. But since webmail < email client, why bother?
So, even if Buzz did the patently Orwellian move of friending my “abusive ex-husband” for me, it would only populate my feed with a list of, say, 1. But even still:
7. I can’t communicate with people on Buzz.
Assuming I have a populated list of thoughtful, Net-savvy friends constantly buzzing about the things I care about, I can’t communicate with them. With Facebook, I can have threaded newsfeed comments, private messages, and good old wall posts. With Twitter, I can send direct messages or @replies.
With Buzz, I can only comment on something my friend has already Buzzed. Think about this: it’s a social media platform without the “social.” If social media is a dinner party, Buzz is a business conference consisting of nothing but PowerPoint slides: no discussion. Think about how bizarre this is.
But the thing about Buzz is that this makes perfect sense. Why would you ever want to send a direct message on Buzz, or write on someone’s “Buzz feed,” or target one of your Buzz readers directly, when your social media is built into your email? In other words, why would Google ever cannibalize their email service?
Google Buzz is not social media. It’s a crufty, also-ran addon to a service used by a shockingly small slice of the Internet. I can’t follow my favorite Twitter celebrities because they don’t have Gmail. I can’t follow my real-life friends, because they don’t have Gmail. My co-workers? Professors? And so it goes. Again I say . . .
Google Buzz is not social media. It’s a glorified way of sending Fwd:Fwd:Fwd:Fwd:Longcat.jpg.
I can’t say I agree completely. Jeremy Reimer’s main point for adoption, “everyone has read Wikipedia, the interface was familiar and so our users needed no training,” is a bit scary, because it doesn’t change the fact that MediaWiki sucks very hard in many different directions. Within forty-eight hours of installing MediaWiki, I had downloaded four other wiki packages to try out, born entirely from my frustration. MediaWiki is always going to be a strange beast, considering how carefully tailored it is to such a strange project. But despite my complaints, I’m going to continue to use it. Why? Well, because I’ve read Wikipedia, and the user interface is familiar to me. Sigh.