So, Google rolled out Google Buzz in my Gmail account last night. I thought I would share my experiences since and my thoughts on their impact and its future. There are a few positives towards the end too, I promise! Here are a few quick links: 

• The negatives
• The positives
• Google’s positives
• Mobile Buzzing
• A summary

My “oh Buzz off” moments: 

1. Connected sites
   Google decided to connect PicasaWeb and my Flickr account automatically. I disconnected both twice, but they resurfaced each time. So far I’m winning. Watch this space.
   Google also appears to have ‘found’ my YouTube page. Naturally as they own YouTube, this isn’t a massive surprise, just not expected. My YouTube channel does not have the same name as my Gmail account, however… Some clues can be found on my Google Profile page where Google has clearly done some sniffing around to find the following sites. Note however, I have NOT used my Gmail account to sign up to any of these sites. I can only assume Google has been reading my email:
   
2. Followers
   I was automatically following one person and already being followed by another. Both seemingly random choices of people since there are others who I email/tweet/converse with more frequently. Interestingly, the following day, I got a notification saying that “1 more person is following me”. Actually it was that person who was already following me in the first place… Hmm.
   
   On using the “Find people” option to select people to follow, I learned of people’s multiple Gmail accounts. I could follow all of them if I wanted. People like to have separate Gmail accounts for many reasons – we email different people, we have different websites that require different profiles for services such as Analytics or AdWords. We keep them separate for a reason…
3. Email address
   My advertised email address is now my Gmail account one. This is not how I want it to be. I use Gmail to collect my website’s email so it sort of serves as a backup for my email and is easier to use on my iPhone. But I’d rather my primary website email address was advertised. But I can’t for the life of me figure out how to do that…
4. Contact groups
   It’s great that you can separate contacts out into Friends, Family, Colleagues and Contacts so that you can pick and choose which updates are shared with who. That’s OK… if you’re a Billy No Mates. Otherwise, that’s most of an afternoon’s-worth of sorting out your hundreds or thousands of contacts into groups. Don’t forget to keep the groups up to date…
   
5. Syncing contacts
   Were you one of those people who synced your contacts between your iPhone and your Gmail account? Yep, all those contacts are now connected via Gmail to Buzz. I have taxi numbers as contacts in Buzz now, along with my Gran and my Doctor. Some contacts don’t even have an email address, let alone be bothered to know what Google Buzz is. But my point is that some groups of people you just don’t need “to Buzz”.
6. Confusing follower/following counts across Google Properties:
   Here’s a screenshot of my follower/following count on Google Reader:
   
   And here’s a screenshot of Google Buzz at time of writing:
   
   I just “Shared” a post from my Google Reader. I’m a little confused as to who is going to see that post. I’m guessing 61, but there is almost definitely going to be some crossover here. Not fantastic for tracking reach.
7. There is now a new tab on my public Google profile showing all my updates on Buzz:
   
   That’s ok. I guess. I can see some people not realising this and posting public updates to their page. As this is higher profile this should be on people’s online reputation management radars.

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However, the positives, as promised: 

1. I like the simple interface, the ability to Like or Comment is very easy. Very Facebook and FriendFeed-esque, but let’s let that slide. These are good features.
2. I like that I can select which sites to connect and that other people’s updates clearly state the source, i.e. Google Reader.
3. I like the simple drop down menu. Very intuitive:
   
4. I like the stacked appearance of updates to give you a chance to read less active users’ updates:
   
5. I like the fact the page refreshes itself using Ajax so I can see comments etc. as they come in. They are easy to identify as well with the aid of a yellow line and fade-out highlighting of the whole post/comment:
   
6. You DO actually have the option to turn Buzz off, but it’s on by default:
   
7. Adding a comment to a shared item in Google Reader is great. This is why we like the OLD retweet feature of Twitter rather than the new one. Adding our own spin:
   
   Here’s one I wrote earlier:
   
8. Posting a link: USE A URL SHORTENER!
   As you can see below, Google still follows the redirects, retrieves the page title, snippet, images etc:
   
   But the link itself is kept as your shortened version. This is essential for tracking your social media efforts:
   

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Mobile on-the-hoof Buzzing 

1. My location wasn’t quite right. I couldn’t work out how to create a new location for my office or link to any existing one. I thought it might link up to Google Local Business Centre listings, but a search for my company proved fruitless.
   
2. Using the page http://buzz.google.com/ on an iPhone is basically a similar experience to an iPhone app. BUT it’s not an app! Google gets around publishing an app in the App Store by encouraging you to add a Home Screen Shortcut to your phone, like you can with any website, as follows:
   

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Pluses from Google’s point of view: 

1. Money! Advertising on Gmail is now more noticeable as they appear above all updates like so:
   
   From a paid search perspective, I’d be interested to know if you could control where your ads appear on Google accounts. You might prefer more informal ad copy here to blend with the social conversations that follow it. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ad section was enhanced further.
2. One giant step for Google…
   Google is going to rock the boats of many other social networks out there with this move. Especially FriendFeed and Facebook. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Twitter too, although I suspect the superfluously simple interface to prevail.

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To summarise 

I’m a little unnerved by how much Google really knows about people. I sort of suspected they knew all that information already or had the ability to find out, but this proves it. This proves that they have tremendous power. Check their list of properties if you want to see what could potentially be linked in the future: Calendar, Docs, Earth, Finance, Books, Talk… and even Translate. Don’t forget they’re a domain registrar and have an affiliate network too.

While this IS basically another platform and since writing it I have proved myself wrong in several ways, this is a little like my Search Cowboys post where I talked about leaving the platform behind and the is the potential to bridge the gap – socially – between different language speakers too.

Its prospects? Google has a massive, pre-existing user base with Gmail. There will no doubt be more uptake of Buzz than there was with Wave due to the immediate integration with Gmail. However, there are some privacy issues, as articulated by @wilks below:

My honest opinion? I think it will stay. As much as I hate the whole Google as “Big Brother” concept, and it is yet another social network to keep checking and updating, it does have a few cool features. And they are kinda fun to use. Occasionally

Google Buzz Features Review: what’s all this Buzz about then? is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

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It all started with a tweet. I wanted to see if my theory that the number of bots exploring links posted on Twitter was on the increase, was correct.

If it was true, it would mean that it would correlate with an increase in Twitter ‘spam’ and automatic tweets filled with affiliate links; two highly irritating types of tweet that in my opinion pollute Twitter.

This triggered me to do some investigating. So I fired up Excel and started playing with my stats from the last 5 months from the links I’ve posted to Twitter (via cli.gs). This is what I found:

Percentage of hits from bots in Twitter links over the last 5 months
[Blue = percentage of bots, red = trendline]

It appears as though the proportion of hits from bots is decreasing over time; disproving my theory. So, what does this tell us?

• Are there fewer bots? I doubt this would be due to a decrease in new bots emerging, but more likely that Twitter is wising up and blocking bots. Lo and behold, here’s a recent example of this: Twitter calls time on sports stats tweeting [5th May 2009, digitalmedia.strategyeye.com]
• Or, are fewer bots being detected? Perhaps bot programmers are finding ways around being detected by Twitter and therefore cli.gs too?

It could be either. Actually, as I realised later upon further investigation, it could be that new bots are actually going back and exploring older links, thus causing older links to continue to accrue more hits. Cli.gs is limited in that it only shows a visitor graph up to the last 30 days, but I did notice literally one or two visits cropping up occasionally:

The lesson? Investigate more! And demand more features from URL shorteners such as cli.gs to enable us to come up with more conclusive results.

Once we have this reliable data, I’d also like to see a breakdown of which links triggered the highest percentage of bot hits – were there keywords in the tweet that attracted bots? (I’d expect so) Therefore, are my tweets latterly lacking those keywords and contributing to the trend above? How does that correspond to new followers? Which brings me to a topic I’ve been curious about for a while: SEO for tweets.

Naturally it’d be great to identify the bots too.

So in conclusion, a great starting point for a lot more investigation! Watch this space.

Twitter Bots on the Decrease? An Experiment is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

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Lately two of the biggest social media sites, Facebook and Twitter, have been rolling out updates and experiments, which is great because we all love new features and improvements. But recently Facebook has had issues with its newest terms of service that caused so much of a stir it had to retract them and revert back to the old version. Now its latest change involves what I can only see as a step very firmly into Twitter’s domain.

Twitter on the other hand has been experiencing a few glitches, and this time it’s not just the appearance of the infamous Fail Whale. While at Think Visibility, I was searching Twitter for the hashtag #thinkvisibility to reveal feedback from delegates real time. It seemed to work well until I saw my friends tweet with the correct use of the hashtag, but noticed their (un-protected) tweets never appearing in the Twitter search results. More recently there have been issues with direct messages being delayed – something I actually first experienced about a month ago – and @ replies going missing.

Do you need trust in order to engage fully with a social media website?

Before I hand over my personal information and fully engage with a social media website, I need to trust it. I don’t know if I’m the only one to feel this way – perhaps I’m in the minority? But seeing the aforementioned glitches and issues has made me lose a bit of trust in social media in general. I want them to work as I find them rewarding and fun to use, both personally and professionally. But how can anyone be expected to trust a website with their personal information when it is not technically sound, can’t decide how it will use the information or has no clear strategy?

With Facebook having more than 175 million active users at time of writing and Twitter growing 1,382% year-over-year in February, that’s a lot of valuable, personal information that should be protected. Facebook is lucky that its users have integrated it so much within their lives that it will be a long time before people begin to quit. Although saying that, I overheard someone yesterday say that they quit it for the exact reasons above. Is the tide turning?

Have you experienced the glitches? If so, have they changed the way you use social media websites?

Social Media Websites: A Trust Issue? is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

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I’ve got to admit that since I discovered Twitter, the last couple of months I have been totally fascinated by it and it’s abilities. I wasn’t convinced at first, but after experimenting I soon realised the benefits of getting to know people, particularly other professionals in my field of work, but also companies I have a strong interest in.

Twitter can be used as an online marketing tool, not only to promote services or products, but also aid online PR and customer relationship management. Below are my top ten fundamentals Twitter business users can’t afford to ignore:

1. Businesses: follow your followers.

Customers can only use the direct messaging system on Twitter if you are following them, so be available for them to contact you. Also, by following your customers you can read their tweets (including replies to you) and therefore understand what concerns they currently have. This may open up new marketing opportunities, but most importantly, it means you can respond to queries or complaints positively and publicly, thus enhancing your online PR. Twitter is a fantastic opportunity for online customer service and relationship management.

2. Twitter is a ‘pull’ medium. What’s in it for your followers?

Twitter users select to follow you, not the other way around. If a customer of your’s has chosen to follow you make sure you reward them for doing so. Twitip has an excellent article on adding value to your Tweets. Give your followers a reason to follow you, enhance their lives and reward them for their interest. Some ideas are providing summaries and links to your news or blog articles, or giving positive helpful tips relating to your products or services.

3. Use your full name or business name

As Ryan Carson from Carsonified tweeted, use your real name on Twitter so people can connect and relate to you. A nickname or online name, unless it’s a well established brand, isn’t as easy to trust.

4. Be honest

Businesses using Twitter will reap the most rewards if they are honest with their customers. That includes admitting problems such as service down times. Naturally you will want to keep your tweets positive to promote yourself, but Twitter works best when you are honest rather than pretentious.

5. Keep (mostly) on-topic

Your followers will expect you to post tweets that are mostly related to you or your products or services. However, occasionally it might be appropriate to lighten the mood and break from the routine. For example, sharing a link to a humourous website (related to your sector if possible), or seasonal greetings. Adding a personal touch and character to tweets can make you appear more approachable. Be careful not to over do it though, you want to remain professional.

6. Make use of the Twitter Search

It may take a while before you attract many followers, so visit the Twitter Search page frequently to learn about your customers and what people are saying about you. Try a search for your business name, website address or even related services to see what the latest buzz is for competitors.

7. Thank your followers

Frequently overlooked, thanking someone for following you or when someone ‘retweets’ what you have said can go a long way. Remember to keep all your messages personalised. A generic automatic reply could have a negative effect.

8. Provide unique insight from your perspective

You have unique views, experiences and knowledge. Share that with your followers and distinguish yourself from the crowd.

9. Back to basics: good grammar please!

It should go without saying that all your tweets should be checked for spelling or grammatical errors. Some shortening of words due to the 140 character limit of tweets is acceptable, but should be last resort.

10. Update

Update regularly to keep the conversation alive. Now you’ve got followers, don’t let them forget about you. Twitter is yet another way to enhance your online presence and build your brand, so make sure you take advantage of it.

10 Twitter Fundamentals for Businesses is a post from: Search Engine Chocolate

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