

Why Google Buzz Should've Been Released Like Wave (and vice versa) - mhunter
http://matthunter.net/post/387457960/why-google-buzz-should-have-been-released-like-wave

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moultano
The purpose of the Wave invites is so that they can fix scaling issues as they
arise. Wait until its out of its limited technology preview status before you
pass judgement on how it was launched.

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timwiseman
You have a good point, but it does not negate the Author's point that wave
requires people that you can collaborate with.

If they wanted to go with this limited technology preview, I suspect the
launch would have gone much more smoothly if people who got the initial
invites had the ability to invite (a limited number) others in their group.
That way the people they did want to collaborate with would be on wave.

Also, I think the author has a good point with how Buzz was released. I use
social networking (facebook), but I use it cautiously. I may have ended up
using Buzz, but I would have been much happier if it had been opt in. As it
is, I can't even find a good way to entirely opt out.

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Miky
If Buzz had been released with invites, I think that it would have had the
same problems as Wave with no one checking it.

Both of them should be separate Google apps with Gmail notifications, but no
Gmail integration. Wave could still have been invite-only for scaling reasons,
but both of them would still have had better reception this way.

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spot
wave is all about starting from a clean slate -- not constrained to integrate
with existing systems. buzz is all about leveraging gmail by adding broadcast
and location.

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bruceboughton
This doesn't negate the author's point. For a lot of people, "buzz is all
about leveraging gmail" is the problem with buzz.

If buzz were a good product it would stand on its own merit without needing to
"leverage" gmail. The trouble is that it's not a good product -- it's a lame
me-too effort that offers little over its rivals (Twitter and Facebook). Me-
too is fine so long as you bring something to the table, and buzz doesn't seem
to, except for gmail integration, which an awful lot of people think is
actually a hindrance.

Google have shown time and time again that they don't get "social networking",
which is fine because they're a search and ads company and they do get
those[1]. (I'm thinking of Orkut, OpenSocial, the way they introduced
following into Reader and now buzz).

[1] the recent facebook login debacle aside

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v21
Buzz has already wormed it's way into my life. Sure, it's mainly done that by
telling me it's there every time I check gmail - which is too much. But the
way I like it is that it tells me the interesting things my friends are doing
elsewhere, and lets me talk about them. Very few people actually Buzz
deliberately, but then many conversation get started by a tumblr post, or a
twitter post. Sure, those obviously have their own mechanisms for interaction,
but those mechanisms aren't cleanly integrated into something I have open all
the time, and telling me about them. Um, except twitter, because I have that
as a widget in the side of the page.

Oh, and the (pretty much separate) geolocating public Buzz layer on Maps for
mobiles is very nice. I discovered a tea place I want to check out just round
the corner from my house, if nothing else.

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adrianwaj
I really think Google can, should and must win in this message-oriented social
networking space. I'd like to see it win too. But between Twitter and
Facebook, Google shouldn't become too dependent on either for fresh, quality
content from the masses.

They stuffed up the launch: so what. Twitter had scalability issues for a
long-time, it much worse than this, and not easily remedied.

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Shorel
I, on the other hand, am very happy that my Facebook and Gmail accounts are
different and with different passwords.

Making all your electronic life have a single point of failure: your google
password, is just a bad policy.

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adrianwaj
Do you think Google are going to fail, and if so, for how long?

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tszming
The problem with Wave is ... how many of you are still actively using it? How
about Gmail?

