#“How to get a non-Deadly Buzz on”
It looks like Google Buzz accounts inside your GMail are like hen's teeth at the minute but if you are desperate to try it out and you have a smartphone you should be in luck.
Just use your phone to go to http://google.com/buzz and it'll probably let you set up an account there and give you access to the mobile web version of Buzz
If you have an Android, Nokia N-series/E-series or WiMo phone you'll also be able to install a Google Maps upgrade that has Buzz features built-in. I wasn't able to sign-up for Buzz within GMaps.
Some initial notes:
- Despite my excitement about the mobile version during the announcement, it hasn't blown me away at all
- Mobile UI is a cluttered mess
- They should just buy Gowalla if they want to see how to build a usable and decent LBS Mobile HTML5 Webapp
- Discoverability is poor
- River of news it ain't
- Twitter killer - not even close
- Doesn't seem to work for GoogApps accounts
- I have 4 GMail accounts. How does it handle my social interactions now?
- Algorithmize my business and personal contacts into two groups? No I didn't think so.
- The GMap version is Latitude 2.0 i.e.I'm So Ronery So ronery. So ronery and sadry arone
- Voice bubbles on a map is pointless when it's low density like West Cork and unusable when it's high density like SFO
The desktop version did not impress at all at the launch so I shudder to think what that will be like when I get my hands on it.
If Google had just built Gowalla or Foursquare or hell even Twitter (hallllllllo Jaiku) and grown out from there, I think it could have worked. But this boil the ocean approach to social by a non-social company is already feeling like a flop.
And back to what I said in mid-2008. If Google had baked Jaiku into the address book of Android, the mobile social networking world would look very different today. But that would have involved two Google divisions actually talking to each other. Wave much?
So in summary:
Mobile Buzz = Google Local Business Centre with Comments.
Desktop Buzz = TBD