Normally I talk tech subjects, but today I remember I'm also into social media.
The title for this post should be "Google Buzz Catchup, but I thought it a better thing to say that with a New Zealand accent.
I don't mind gadgets or OSes that have some built-in difficulty, just so long as they're intuitive to work out.
I've been using the mobile version of Google Buzz on my phone and my desktop's Safari browser since the weekend, hardly needing to go into Gmail.
Day two of Google Buzz brought activation of the Buzz link in my Gmail.
So while the mobile version was good, the real thing on my laptop was better. You wouldn't believe the fun I had once I could Buzz in earnest. Since I've been on Friendfeed the past year, like a lot of other Friendfeed regulars, I had no problems adapting to Google Buzz. It was also great to see Robert Scoble starting some great threads, something he'd dropped back a bit from after Friendfeed's founders ended up working for Facebook. My Gmail inbox only fills up with Buzzes where I've joined a conversation that someone else has started. In the Buzz section itself, all the people I follow post either short updates, or start a thread. My Google profile rounds it out in showing me all the Buzzes I've personally done. Perhaps that's where I've a small complaint...although this is all theoretically integrated, I tend to think it misses a consistent UI. At the moment I have to have a tab for Reader, a tab for Buzz/Gmail and a tab for my profile to really get the best use. Sure, I can share anything in Reader TO Buzz, but I'm not seeing it from Reader, so it's not quite the integration I'd feel the most comfortable with. That's about my only real complaint. I can still share things from elsewhere any number of ways. It's that versatile.Then it really comes into its own when I apply the search box. We have two search buttons next to the box, one for searching Buzzes, the other for searching the Web. That's where you get signal instead of noise, searching for just a specific name or topic and watching the Buzzes for that search come into view, whether it be a short update or a bigger thread/discussion. I've seen a couple of Buzzes earlier today mentioning various search operators which can also be used, not unlike how its done in Friendfeed.Of course, some new people are scratching their heads on the style of Buzz, but anyone with Friendfeed experience is having the time of their lives. Since the sale of Friendfeed (or actually the founders) to Facebook, a lot of FF regulars have been wanting something as good. Now they've found it. And there's going to be some brilliant jokes or "buzz-words" cropping up any second.So...and yes, this is going to be a groaner...the Buzz is building.
Google's Buzz is up and running.
The beauty of Buzz is that Friendfeed's fans will feel at home with it.In essence, if someone like Robert Scoble puts an update out over buzz, as they did over at Friendfeed with him, his contacts can have a whole conversation from that point on. Where it differs from Friendfeed is that it's integrated into your Gmail account.So if you've already got some friends via the Gmail address book, you already have a starter group to "buzz." Not just that, think of the size of the user base. You can share privately or publicly. You can use photos with it. You can import from Picasa, Flickr and Google Reader. Plus, you already have a spam filter. At the moment my laptop's access to Google hasn't received the update to buzz, whereas my iPhone can access buzz via the mobile Buzz site. I have to admit, it's renewed some enthusiasm for Google stuff. My contacts on Google Reader are small compared to my Twitter account.And it's faster by far than Google Wave. While I like Wave, Buzz is a lot closer to where I think Wave should be. I daresay that will be clearly demonstrated in the next few weeks. I also think former and current Friendfeed users will be at the forefront of using Buzz to do a better job than Wave. Perhaps that'll spur the Wave developers to move forward with some much-needed changes.Of course, Wave and Buzz are both horses in the same Google stable, so it's no real problem.General verdict on Buzz? Out of ten? Very nearly a ten. At least until I see how much bandwidth it chews up...
It seems to be the week for new changes in online services to be rolled out. It wasn't more than a few days ago Facebook was bringing out the change to users' Home layout.
Now Google is about to unveil a new module in Gmail.As this technology article in the Wall Street Journal points out, we can look forward to social media style updates without having to move from our Gmail screen. This should be quite interesting when you think of all the Google properties which roughly correspond to say, yFrog or Twitvid. Google already have Google FriendConnect, Picasa, Youtube, just to name a few. Throw in Google Maps natively there... According to Techcrunch, what's going to be announced should also make it easier to view media in Gmail.So will this new form of Google social updates be mainly for all the friends you have in the Googleverse? Or will it tie into your existing social update sites? We'll know by 10am U.S. Pacific Time on the 9th of February. As Mashable points out, tech media have been invited to an event at Google HQ at that time for a big announcement or two. Now if we could only get Google to announce they've sped up Wave considerably...
My partner was furious that I and her brother had the new Facebook Home layout before she did. That's how impressed she was with it. She liked seeing it on my page so much she wanted it too.
It's a good layout choice. It's cleaner and less busier than it was prior to this. Friend request, messages and notifications become icons over on the top left, everything is organised down the left side for your various types of updates, then your applications and finally your online friends. Over on the top right are the Home, Profile and settings links.Search is now more prominently featured in the top middle, then underneath are the updates from Facebook friends. There are two categories of news feed now, Recent and Top Stories. Nice and effective. Generally this new layout is a long-overdue feature and makes the home page a better experience. One would presume that the acquisition of Friendfeed has gone a long way to helping such improvements along, especially the Friendfeed founders' expertise with real-time updating. Perhaps Facebook should acquire Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington next.
As I've said on my other site today, I got an Android-powered HTC Magic for my birthday.
However, I'll forgo the joke I told there about what the term is for jail-breaking an Android smartphone.While the Google Android Market has a smaller amount of apps than Apple's App Store, you find some good programs occasionally. Today's discovery is an app called Swift.I'd call Swift a medium-level Twitter client for the Android platform. You get a bit more than a simple updating client, but not quite as much as the Seesmic Twitter client. You won't find lists in Swift. What you do get is a clean interface, as you can see in the graphic above.In the top-right corner we see the balloon for new tweets. Below it, the timeline icons give you access to timeline, mentions, direct messages, search and profiles. When you press menu, you're given further options of new tweet, send saved tweets, change view, jump-to-now (refresh) and preferences. Should you press on a particular user's tweet you get the reply and retweet buttons, along with an arrowed button for options to copy a tweet, copy a link to tweet, or save.Admittedly, this app doesn't do as many tricks as, say, Twidroid or Seesmic. Still, it's nice, clean, functional and effective. Since I did bring up the topic of "rooting the android" (call it a jailbreak if you're Australian so you don't wet yourself laughing at that unintended euphemism), I should mention a great custom firmware which improves on a lot of original Android functions. Cyanogen has been one of the best developers of custom roms for the Android devices. His custom roms can be downloaded over-the-air through the CM Updater and themed. If you look at the original Android desktop in the wikipedia entry on Android, you can see the need for a decent theme. In this regard, non-official devs are probably doing Android a favor. The tab for the apps drawer definitely benefits from some great theming.Although Android is an open source system, there's still some debate on the topic of rooting the Android (and this is causing large amounts of laughter from Australians every time I use that term). By the same token, some good custom roms are actually better than the mainstream ones. They did NOT have the problem associated with Canada's Rogers G1s and HTC Magics where emergency 911 calls couldn't be made while using GPS. It's up to you whether you want to leave your Android phone stock, or whether you want to use a custom rom. If you're going to customize and gain root...make sure you read ALL the documentation and tutorials on it thoroughly. Just do your homework right and your phone will be quite good afterwards. If you do choose a custom rom, make sure also to choose one where all the things you need are working perfectly. Devs make it clear which things do or don't work in each custom rom.As long as one of the first things you put on a customized Android is the backup and restore recovery menu, you'll be fine. Now I'm off to tweet some more with Swift...
