NEW YORK — It’s been about a month since Buzz arrived with a splash. Positioned as Google’s answer to the popularity of Facebook and other social-networking sites, Buzz is a way for circles of friends to connect right on Google’s Gmail home page.
However, Buzz comes across as Buzzkill. It’s a social-networking party crasher that no one invited, trying to make conversation with everyone, anyone, as other guests look on with suspicion and unease.
On the face of it, the Buzz features are impressive for a first go-around, matching many of the basics offered by the 6-year-old Facebook.
You can link your Buzz account to about a half dozen other services, including Twitter and the photo-sharing sites Picasa and Flickr. Updates made there then get distributed to all the Buzz users who are “following” you. And you can post updates directly on Buzz.
Such links, pictures and posts get shown on a single page, in a layout similar to Facebook’s. People can comment on a specific update and declare that they “like” it — just as they can on Facebook.
Of course, Facebook has thousands of applications that you can link to your account, but that site had a head start. I’m sure Buzz will add more companion services over time, and Google Inc. has released tools to help outside programmers work their services into Buzz.
Buzz does offer a few improvements over Facebook. Photos appear larger, and comments on people’s updates are in the same size, not subordinate to the original posting.
But these are minor boosts — not enough to overcome a broader complaint I have.
My friends on Buzz are supposedly my closest confidants. I have 17 people following me, meaning they get my updates when they click on the “Buzz” link on the left side of the Gmail home page. Meanwhile, I’m following 46 people, so I get to see what they’re up to. But I’ve added none of those people to my circle, and only one of those 17 admitted to adding me.
Rather, to streamline the creation of these circles, Google automatically added them based on how often we’ve e-mailed in the past. But frequently e-mailing someone doesn’t necessarily mean I’d want to share party photos with that person.
By contrast, my Facebook circle is one I’ve painstakingly constructed one person at a time. Frequent e-mail contacts don’t always make the cut. In fact, I’m sitting on seven friend requests, including one from an uncle (Sorry!!).
To Google’s credit, the company quickly responded to complaints about these automated circles. Instead it now offers suggestions that people can accept or reject.
But circles previously created by machines remain in effect. Many friends who are supposedly following me have told me they were similarly perplexed. One wrote me, “i did not add you, google did. I think this was a social networking failure.”
The fundamental problem with Buzz is that no one I know is using it regularly. Because people hadn’t actively joined Buzz or added followers to their circles themselves, they don’t have the same vested interest in it as they do in Facebook.
And many of my friends share these sentiments: There’s not enough time for yet another social hub, and my community is already on Facebook, so what’s the point of starting fresh?
Google describes Buzz as a work in progress, which is a good sign if Google wants to become a serious player in social networking. I’ll note that I didn’t like Gmail’s approach to e-mail initially, either, but I now can’t imagine returning to the old way of treating individual messages in a vacuum rather than as part of conversations.
Google does have a long way to go, but it’s not impossible. Remember when MySpace was a runaway hit, or when AOL’s chat rooms reigned?
Google needs to give people a more compelling reason to use Buzz. It needs innovations that stress the human side of social.
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