Google Plus

So then there was Google+.

Big brother Goog sure has cried long nights about the miscarriages that were wave and buzz. Being beaten up by facebook and twitter in the then coolest thing in the block should’ve hurt the search giant a lot. But now it’s time to see the light spread. I mean, see Google+ spread.

We don’t want to talk about facebook privacy again, do we? I chose not being a dumb fuck and deleted facebook sometimes back and that was it.

And that brings us to Twitter. Twitter’s so called organic growth has been great for it until everyone and his mother jumped in and Twitter decided not to do anything about managing ever increasing crap in it. Yes they introduced groups and new web interface that was more of downgrade but it doesn’t help. I, an early adopter, a hard core user and an original lover who went to bed so many times with Twitter is currently having second thoughts.

And that brings us to light… tsk… Google+. Circles is the real deal. Because It was what I wanted with UI sex added in to it. I’m still discovering G+ circles and G+ is still beta. But it’s already doing good. The real social life is not a binary decision. Facebook learned this the hard way and struggled to deliver something that works ever since. Twitter on the other hand simply is not supporting the idea by design.

The dangerous thing is, G+ seems to be the best of both worlds. I can send a ceratin post to Public, a Circle I created, many Circles, all the Circles, extended Circles or I can just select, to the finest detail, who are going to see it. Your new crush is too old fashioned that she’s only on Facebook?. She got email right? You can chose to send your love poems via email. It’s that Simple.

We don’t talk about Facebook privacy anymore. We don’t have to talk about G+ privacy either. Because you can control the privacy settings to the finest detail for everything on G+. Deal closed.

You get Google chat integrated in to G+. So fortunately we don’t have to hop on yet another chat network to chat in G+. I hear it’s Hangout feature to be quite awesome. I never tried it. I haven’t had more than a handful of videos chats for all my life anyway.

The Sparks are G+ attempt to improve on and eat what Twitter has for lunch. You can follow news in the sense ‘new stuff ‘ with sparks. I fiddled with it for sometimes and it looks OK. It’s yet to be improved but it’s there usable. I know Google has all it needs to make it super awesome. I’ll come to that point.

Remember Priority inbox? It’s so simple that  we don’t even remember to thank it when it helps us. Or do we even notice it’s there? yeah that simple. Take technology used in priority inbox, improve and have it handy for later.

Sparks can use some priority-inbox-y goodness right now. But believe me it can be used on our social feed. Because no matter how carefully we make Circles and how rigorously we try to maintain sanity using Circles, our contacts will find ways to ruin it. See what happened to Twitter. It’s hardly usable with the crap people dump in there. It will take sometime for G+ to come to that point. Because 1) G+ current conversation model doesn’t make it easily ruined like Twitter’s @replies (Still love the simplicity of the idea and hate the people who ruin it). 2) Not everyone and his granny is on G+ yet. But they will come in (They should). They will come in to ruin.

That is when priority inbox technology (Machine learning and stuff) can save the world. I predicted priority inbox feature when Google launched their prediction API. It’s safe to predict similar integration of predictions technology in social graph. I won’t lose anything if it never turn out to be true. But if it does, it’ll be good news for all of us and there won’t be a day with crap on our social feeds anymore.

I am really looking forward what Google engineers come up with in the future. Now that Google has found UI engineers that can add sex in to UI Google engineers works will serve more happy people.

I see a bright future for Google+. I wish one of course. So that we can tell EVERYTHING about us to the big bro Goog. Apparently, they already estimate the strength of the relationships we have >:).

My Buzz rant.

So Buzz came out with little buzz. I said little buzz because it didn’t buzz as much as wave did. I checked Buzz but it didn’t have anything special for me. So I disabled Buzz.

Google Buzz Logo

There was so much bad buzz about Buzz but I was not exposed to much when I first tried Buzz. I disabled solely because I didn’t see it making life better. Twitter is enough for me after all. Well I’m still me who deleted my Facebook account sometime back :).

Anyway, after the load of bad buzz Buzz received, Google people changed things for good. Apparently Google has good plans for Buzz and doesn’t want Buzz to die so soon. Or it’s the rebirth of good trend, ‘Listening to the user’.

So, with hope Google might find this (just kidding ;) ) I’d like to lay down some things I like to see in Buzz. I think it’s safe to say that these are the things that might take me back in Buzz.

Flawless Twitter integration.
Twitter is the most popular micro blogging platform to date. Everyone wants to build their own Twitter. Facebook and Google doesn’t seem to be any different. Buzz is Googles effort to enter Twitters space. I’d consider using Buzz if it allows good Twitter integration. Integration in the sense ‘me not having to leave Buzz to do my Twitter activities’.

When Google created Wave, one of the goals was to eliminate the data duplication happen in email forwarding. Likewise, if Buzz does Twitter integration without filling up the web with redundant data that will be great.

Comply with Twitter API
World needs a standard protocol for microblogging. This reminds me the days I was dreaming for an IM standard which allows adding buddies across networks. Jabber is doing lots of good for IM as a standard but my dreams are still dreams.

Opens source platform Laconica is doing for microblogging what Jabber did for IM . But still it’s far from dream come true.

Recently WordPress and Tumblr, famous blog clients implemented Twitter API. They are blogs but can you connect the dots? Twiiter is the de facto standard and there are so many Twitter clients out there. Why not allow things be more integrated in this small world? :) . It’d be nice if Buzz took another step forward.

Selective Buzzing is really needed.
I don’t know if it’s there but I didn’t find it in the short journey I had around Buzz. By selective Buzzing, I mean being able to Buzz to my friends, family colleagues etc. separately. I’m not sure that Twitter Lists implement this functionality and the similar feature Facebook had didn’t offer this functionality while I was around. So I believe one of the key features Buzz should have in order lead in the list is to allow communication channels insulated from each other.

Google have to be very serious about users privacy since they are playing Buzz inside Gmail, where most people need most privacy, after real life. Google messed up on this factor in Buzz release but they are really in to fixing it.

Finally, Buzz should be making managing information overload easy. Not adding on to the load. Because what they add might be the ‘last straw’.