I signed up for Google Buzz when it came out and I’ve been playing with it for a few weeks now (once I got my Google profiles in order, which is really something I wish they’d fix). At first, Buzz was a bit overwhelming in the amount information – and I still think that you’ll want to limit the number of people you follow (at least until they make it easier to expand/collapse/view buzzes). But I’ve found that I get some really great information that I wouldn’t otherwise see – not because it wasn’t available some other way, but because Buzz makes it so easy to see in one place.
Firstly, Buzz shows all the comments made on a post on that buzz – so you can see some really great conversations happening around topics. It used to be that you’d have to use Disqus or visit the actual websites to see this type of conversation – or be monitoring a hashtag on Twitter. Since Buzz is tied into Gmail, it makes it much easier to see when updates have come through and when other people have commented on something you have. Reading posts is great, but there’s some really insightful conversations happening around those posts that Buzz brings to the forefront.
While it has been possible to see what other people are reading in Google Reader by following them, Buzz makes it much easier to find people’s Reader feeds because they can have them go into Google Buzz. So now I’m following some very interesting people through Google Reader and seeing what they find important. You still want to limit how many people you’re following in Reader otherwise the information will be overwhelming, but I’ve found some new sources of information thanks to Buzz.
Have you found Buzz to be useful? How so?
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Technorati tags: Google, social media, identity, marketing, business strategy, business