

Google admits Buzz social network testing flaws - RiderOfGiraffes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8517613.stm

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ukdm
I suspect it was rushed out when someone actually paniced about "the
competition". There's rumors Facebook is starting it's own e-mail service and
the social network just scaled back it's ad relationship with Microsoft. It is
clearly growing competition and has 400 million+ users compared to Gmail's 120
million+ (I believe those figures are roughly right).

It is feasible Google did this on purpose too. I can't remember where I read
the article, but it suggested this was an expected reaction to Buzz and the
fallout was worth dealing with due to the free promotion Buzz got from it.
Kind of like the car recall offset against potential deaths/lawsuits caused by
faulty parts scenarios. Put simply: it was worth the bad press to get Buzz
integrated into millions of accounts now.

Buzz is here to stay whether we like it or not. What's worrying is Google were
prepared to push this out to millions based on the feedback of 20,000 Google
staff.

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TrevorJ
Trust is expensive. Too expensive to spend on the hopes of finding some free
publicity, especially from a company that owns it's own advertisement network
and can advertise its' own products whenever it feels like it.

I have a hard time believing that this was intentional on Googles' part.

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elblanco
Considering how slow Google has rolled out products in the past, and how
pervasive and invasive Buzz is, the way this was rolled out is really, truly
surprising.

I'm glad that Google is at least apologetic about it all. It doesn't fix the
problem, but not being assholes about a bad roll-out (Sony) is worth quite a
lot to me.

Solving any problem starts with admitting there is one.

~~~
charlesju
Are they being apologetic or did they have this planned from day-1? My theory
is that they knew that this would be incredibly intrusive, but they did it
this way anyways to get the necessary traction they needed to get a social
product off the ground. Now that they have the exposure they need (since
everyone checks gmail daily and they were on max invasion for a week) they can
go back to being nice and apologetic to save their brand image.

Well played Googs.

~~~
orblivion
You know, I have a very similar attitude toward Facebook's Beacon. I figured,
there's no way they didn't see it coming. In fact I can point to an article
that did, in fact, see it coming, before it happened.

I never forgave Facebook, because I'm assuming their apology was disingenuous
(and indeed they continue to do things that are disrespectful of their users,
so I feel like I made a decent call). Boycotting Google is way harder, not
sure what to think. Is this as bad as Beacon? Was it as obvious that it was
going to blow up in their face?

~~~
elblanco
I think that the difference here is that Google, publicly at least, says lots
of the right things about privacy. They seem (again publicly) at least
genuinely concerned about privacy. Whereas FB (and Zuckerberg in particular)
has made many public statements about how annoying people's privacy is.

That's why I think Google's apology is coming from a sincere place, and the
mistake was simply driven by an abundance of ambition and a lack of caution
(cause by hopeless naivete). FB's apologies always rang hollow because we know
Zuckerberg is tremendously aware of the issues (because he's informed of them
in nearly every interview) and simply doesn't care.

~~~
orblivion
And I should add, to your use of the word "publicly", I'll admit that there's
no way to know what's in their hearts, but if they all at least _behave_ as if
they were sincere, it's all I could really ask for.

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ilamont
_The BBC understands that Buzz was only tested internally and bypassed more
extensive trials with external testers - used for many other Google services._

If true, this is really surprising, considering the tens of millions of gmail
users who would be affected and the well-known problems faced by Facebook
whenever it has opened up user information in new ways.

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tom_rath
Of course, one of the first things they did was add a prominent "Send your
feedback to Google!" link so customers could tell them exactly what they liked
and disliked about the service.

Right?

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metatronscube
I love Google products (can tell you how much I rely on them) but I'm afraid
that I have already given up using this due to the way it was so carelessly
rolled out. Without going into too much detail I have found that it has
damaged some of the relationships between myself and some friends and extended
family. They defiantly missed a few use cases in their analysis.

I can't figure out why Google didn't roll out Wave using this method and set
something like Buzz as a opt-in.

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adamilardi
As google gathers more and more of our information these types of blunders
will get worse and worse. I think even a beta user would not want to have
personal data exposed. Privacy features cannot be released in beta when it
comes to a company like google.

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amichail
What about using the word "subscribe" instead of "follow" in the user
interface? Would that help somewhat in terms of privacy worries?

Nobody wants to be followed around, but people subscribing to your posts
sounds great.

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enomar
Please don't give Google any ideas. I'm still mad they're calling tags
"labels".

Using well known terminology helps people understand the metaphor. I also
think "follow" is for social interactions whereas "subscribe" fits better into
a publishing metaphor.

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joshu
Oh, YOU are mad?

Downvoter: there's a little more context here.

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RiderOfGiraffes
I'm not the down-voter, but I've found your remark and your edit completely
pointless and incomprehensible. Perhaps they mean something to you, perhaps
they mean something to some others, but to me, and possibly to the majority of
readers here, they're cryptic, content-free, and add nothing to the value of
HN.

Your profile gives hints as to what the "context" might be, but perhaps if you
gave complete, clear and coherent comments you would be more effective at
putting your point, regardless of whether you care about karma.

~~~
joshu
Explaining the joke would have been far less funny. Context is everything.

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enomar
I didn't get it at first either. I think if you explain the context is in your
profile, more people might understand.

