As you’re no doubt all aware, Google launched their ‘social networking feed’ called Buzz a little while ago. After much fanfare and hoopla, they changed a few features to make it more acceptable to the privacy-conscious. Unfortunately, they changed these features too late for many, and it would appear that many people don’t trust Google Buzz right now. While I personally rather like it, and think it could be tweaked in a few ways, I’m not writing this post to discuss the merits of Buzz. Rather, I’d like to point out a few items that make it interesting from a technical and analytical point of view.
A feature that very few people seem to have noticed/commented on is the E-mail notification feature. When someone makes a ‘comment’ on an item in your ‘news feed’, you are sent an email notification. What’s particularly interesting is that after you read the E-mail notification, and something else occurs on the same Buzz item, the original email appears to have the time-stamp changed, status set to unread, and the contents of the E-mail itself update dynamically to reflect the latest occurrences on that Buzz item. I have not yet tested whether the time-stamp changes only on IMAP accounts, or whether a similar ‘dynamic’ occurrence happens with POP accounts as well.
This aspect of Buzz intrigues me. I’d venture that this is Google’s first attempt at blurring the lines between Google Wave communication and E-mail. I suspect that once they perfect this technique of seemingly dynamic E-mail reception, the next logical step will be two-way communication from a single E-mail/Wave item.
One other thing intrigues me about Google Buzz. How will it affect Google’s news algorithms?
I think Google Buzz really is an algorithmically beautiful piece of work. The blurring and meshing of website content, Twitter feeds, RSS feeds, all with the ability to custom permission the ability for others to comment on your items. In a world where Facebook’s young leadership are attempting to strong-arm open all communication to public eye, Google seems to realize (after their first few days of dealing with Buzz backlash) that people aren’t ready or willing to open up two-way communication with the entire world.
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