What do you think? I think the probability is lower that it will flop like Wave in terms of widespread use because I can recognize what the application is trying to do. It seems to be pushing into a recognizable niche of social content aggregation and organization, though since it hooks into stuff you already use like Gmail it's got a definite advantage out of the gates. The only major caution is that a lot of the comments I'm seeing in Buzz are like the initial ones in Wave. "So, what do we do with this?" "Hey everyone!" "I'm here...."
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Actually, most of the people on my list went to it straightaway as a way to share links; it's just being used as an extension to google reader where more people comment on shared items. But that's liable to change, I'd think; I guess the linear extrapolation is that it becomes an easier way to filter links? So long as it doesn't get spammed out by THOSE type of friends...
I don't think it's fair to compare the two. Wave is still invite only, while Buzz just up and appeared in my gmail. So I don't see how anyone can say that Wave will or will not be used far and/or wide.
I, for one, plan on ignoring the hell out of Buzz, and don't know what Wave even does since I can't get into it.
i just sent you an invite. it's trivial to get one now, are you a hermit? :-) prepare to be bored!
Buzz does not kill this or that service. It just enhances Gmail. Welcome Buzz. I am having fun with it.
The world is not yet setup for realtime collaboration of this kind :-)
Keep on going in the future!
I'm also already buzzing with a bunch of friends. I did some waving but it stopped...
It depends if I can filter out twitter feeds. They're kind of swamping it at the moment.
Do you think the verdict on the Google Wave is a bit early? The full release won't hit the beach until May.
I agree with Fargo, Buzz and Waves are very different beasts. Wave isn't even out of the box yet, not really, and it has a range of really fascinating features (robots, gadgets, replay) as well as some that you find in Buzz too. It is also for a completely different market. Let's not kill it off before it is born, and allowed to grow a bit.
I guess I'll check it out: but my first response was, "What the hell do I do with that?"
I think Google has got to find a way to market these new tools in a way that the answer to that question is the first impression you get.
Sometimes it seems as if they invent abstract capabilities, throw them out there, and hope folks find a human use for them.
Which I guess happens sometimes . . .
Why hey, thanks Razib! Even if it does bore me I appreciate the gesture. And yes, perhaps I've been a bit hermit-like the last year or so.
@Razib said...
"The only major caution is that a lot of the comments I'm seeing in Buzz are like the initial ones in Wave. "So, what do we do with this?" "Hey everyone!" "I'm here....""
Twitter was like that originally too. (Although I think you'd have to have been a twitter user before twitter went mainstream to appreciate it. Before CNN started promoting them.) There used to often be comments like that every time someone new created a twitter account. (Which was a lot less common back then.)
So that type of confusion doesn't necessarily spell Google Buzz's downfall (given that twitter seemed to do well).
Google Buzz could pull and IE. In that, IE didn't become popular because all the Netscape users switched to IE. IE became popular because it was the default browser on MS Windows, and the new Web users (who used IE just because it was the default) eventually outnumbered the old Web users (who were using Netscape).
Perhaps new Web users will use Google Buzz (instead of the alternatives) because it is the default with Google's GMail. (Although you'd really need to have some info on the new user rate, and how many existing users there are of the alternatives.)
My biggest problem with it is that it defaults all content to public and posts it on my Google profile page, which can be found by Googling my real name. I posted something, vacillated for a few hours, then deleted it.