Showing posts with label google buzz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label google buzz. Show all posts
10:37
Google Buzz Educates Teens About Privacy
Google has released a new video aimed at teens about making Google Buzz a safer experience.
The video was released in conjunction with the new Buzz privacy reset issued yesterday. This new focus on privacy and privacy options comes amidst class-action lawsuits and a request for FTC investigation regarding the service’s launch and explanation to consumers.
Although aimed at teens, the tips are good for anyone using Buzz to keep in mind.
Here’s the video:
- Keep your private information private – Don’t listen to Mark Zuckerberg kids — public is only the new private if you let it be.
- Know who’s following you – This is perhaps easier said than done as it forces users to monitor their Gmail accounts for Buzz-related information.
- Control your Google Profile – Google lets you control what people can see, but you don’t have to do anything more than offer up your first and last name.
- Manage posts and comments – Google Buzz lets you edit or delete any comments that you make on your own posts, delete comments others leave on your posts and delete comments you leave on others’ posts.
- Know how to turn it off – In Gmail settings, you have the option of either turning Buzz off in Gmail but keeping it active on your phone or disabling it entirely. Disabling Buzz entirely will remove your Google Profile account and delete all of the comments and posts associated with your account.
As nice as it is to see Google finally trying to take control of its product and emphasize consumer education and options, the video also underscores how flawed the initial Buzz roll-out was from a privacy perspective. I mostly wrote about the privacy issues in context of adults communicating with other adults — I didn’t even think about all of the teen mini-dramas that might have occured because of the previous default settings.
What do you think about Google’s launch of Buzz and the company’s subsequent actions? Let me know.
What do you think about Google’s launch of Buzz and the company’s subsequent actions? Let me know.
09:44
Google Buzz: 5 Opportunities for Small Businesses
Just like Twitter and Facebook, Buzz has the potential to be a powerful medium for sharing content. You can use it to share blog posts, special deals, or interesting links related to your niche. Just like other social media services, you shouldn’t overdo it though – you want to mix promotional messages with a balance of other useful information and conversation for your followers.
Just when you thought you had social media figured out, Google has shaken things up with a new entrant into the market: Google BuzzGoogle Buzz. It’s integrated into Gmail, which means right out of the gate it potentially has an audience of tens of millions of people. As such, it could eventually prove as important to your business as the other services we’ve seen prosper in the past few years.
If you’ve spent much time on social media sites, many of the features will look familiar, as Buzz combines elements of Twitter, Facebook, and the quickly rising Foursquare. But there are some subtleties that make Buzz unique, and in turn create opportunities that you should familiarize yourself with –- if not start to take advantage of –- as soon as possible.
1. Gathering Customer Feedback
Like Twitter, Buzz lets you post a message to a group of “followers” that subscribe to your updates. However, there are a few differences, namely that messages can be longer than 140 characters (and include supporting images and links) and that replies are all grouped under the original message. This makes conversations easier to track and follow up on. There are also built-in features to reply in a one-on-one way, via either e-mail or Google Talk.
2. Engaging With Others
If you use Gmail, there’s a good chance you already have a built-in network on Google Buzz. The service helps you get started by letting you connect with those you e-mail or chat with frequently. Once you’re following some people, clicking the “Buzz” link from Gmail’s main navigation will let you see their most recent updates. You can comment on them, “like” them, or follow up personally with an e-mail or chat message.
3. Collaboration
Buzz can be used both for broadcasting a message to all of your followers and to select groups of them. If you’ve already set up Groups in Gmail, they’re already available in Buzz. If not, you can create new ones on-the-fly. Posting a private message on Buzz works exactly the same as posting a public one – you just select the Group you want to be able to see it, and then only those people will be able to view and comment on it. It’s instant, private collaboration.
4. Marketing
It’s too soon to tell whether Buzz will have the type of impact for brick-and-mortar businesses that services like Yelpand increasingly Foursquare have had, but it has a very similar feature set. Users can “check in” at business locations, in turn notifying their followers of their whereabouts. Thus, encouraging your customers to check in on Buzz (and other location-based services) can be a way to drive free word-of-mouth marketing for your business.
5. Sharing Content
So is it time to jump head first into Buzz? At this point, the right answer is probably “not so fast.” While Buzz clearly has some promising use cases, it’s also not yet ideally designed for businesses. There are no business accounts, no multi-user support, and a host of privacy issues that nearly derailed the service in its first couple weeks.Buzz will likely become more viable for businesses when a Google Apps version is offered, as well as a standalone service that can be accessed by anyone outside of Gmail – both of which are reportedly in the works. Nonetheless, familiarizing yourself with Buzz’s features and opportunities now could be immensely valuable in the future, while at the present, it can provide some useful additional functionality for Gmail users and their contacts.
09:05
Enraged Gmail Users Grab Pitchforks, Sue Google over Buzz
Not content to express their discontent in 140 characters on Twitter, angry Gmail users have piled onto a class action lawsuit led by a Harvard law student.
As if a wave of Internet uproar and a privacy complaint to the FTC weren’t enough, Google’s Buzz has finally sparked that all-important benchmark of consumer discontent: a class-action lawsuit.
According to lawyers for Eva Hibnick, Buzz wasn’t just a shoddy addition to their favorite e-mail service, it was actually illegal. Lawyers for the 24-year-old Harvard law student allege that Buzz broke numerous electronic communication laws, including the Federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Federal Stored Communications Act and California common and statutory law. With Hibnick as the figurehead, they’ve filed a class-action lawsuit in a San Jose court.
“I feel like they did something wrong,” said Hibnick, according to ABC News. “They opted me into this social network and I didn’t want it.”
The majority of complaints about Buzz revolved around its automatic friend selection process. When Google activated Buzz, existing Gmail users automatically became part of the network, with their most commonly contacted friends added as followers for all to see. As a flurry of fuming users pointed out, this opened the door for all sorts of accidental reveals: a journalist’s confidential sources exposed, an employee’s contact with a rival company, a husband’s continued correspondence with an ex.
Although Google has since relented and changed the privacy controls for Buzz, Hibnick’s lawyers still feel Google’s opt-out model is deceptive, and that the damage has already been done from the private information shared at launch.
The complaint seeks an injunction barring Google from the same type of action in the future, along with “unspecified monetary relief.”