Welcome to Google Buzz

Our very own King Google brings in one more fabulous service. Recently, the Gmail account holders must have come across the new social-media service by Google – Google Buzz. I’m here to share my thoughts about it, and later in the post, I’ll be telling some ways to customize it and use it. I’ll also share a trick, which can help you to opt-out from the email updates of buzz, which may have started to clutter-up your inbox.

According to my belief, Google Buzz is is ready to set benchmark in terms of Social Media Marketing. I bet that Google is trying to incorporate a large number of people for Google Buzz. It has already taken a giant leap by inviting the existing Gmail users as part of the Buzz Community, which is a very good start for them. It is better than other social media in a way that it is backed by G-power such as Picassa for photo uploads, Youtube for videos, and what more..

Google introduces "Google Buzz" - A social media service

There is already a debate sparked between the various webmasters about comparing Buzz Vs Twitter. According to me, it is too fast to reach to a conclusion now, but after 6 months or so, the picture would be clearer. Previously, when Google launched (Gmail + GoogleTalk), people were skeptic about it being able to compete with other services, chiefly (Yahoo Mail + messenger). Today, Gmail has overpowered Yahoo mail and Google Talk is used more than Y! messenger now.

Now, here are some of the features I would want to share:

1. Formatting Text in Google Buzz

   This is usually known to most out there, it’s the same as that in GoogleTalk:

   • Wrap text in asterisks for bold text (*Vinay* becomes Vinay).
   • Wrap text in underscores for italics (_Vinay_ becomes Vinay).
   • Wrap text in hyphens for strike-through (-Politics- becomes Politics).

2. Permalink to a specific Buzz Post

   

   How to get permalinks of a post on Buzz

   Every post you make on Buzz has it’s own, unique web-page. You can go to that page by clicking on the small arrow on the right side of the post, and selecting “Link to this post” You can share this link anywhere, for example – IM, emails, linking back through another page, etc. Here is a permalink to a one of my buzzes made yesterday.

3. @ Replies on Buzz

   

   Sending @ replies on Buzz

   Are you bored of sending emails, or consider it too-old fashioned? Then you can think of buzzing with twitter-style @ replies. You can start a buzz with an @ sign, and a drop-down menu comes to auto-complete it for you, choosing from your contacts. The Buzzes you send out will appear on their time-lines (they must have Buzz enabled).

4. Get rid of Buzz updates cluttering your Inbox

   Like me, most of you must be annoyed of emails from Google Buzz. When anyone comments something on one of your Buzz posts, an email lands in your Gmail inbox. If you want to turn-off these emails, but you still want to use buzz, then try out the following steps:

   

   Gmail Filter settings to avoid Buzz Emails

   • Go to Gmail Settings and click on “Filters“
   • Create a new Filter (by clicking the link).
   • Check for a field named “Has the words“
   • Enter “label:buzz” there (without quotes)
   • Click Next. Ignore the warning that will appear.
   • Make “Skip the inbox” as the choice for filter action and save the filter.

Picture credit - blogohblog.com

People who spend maximum of their internet time on social networking sites are the ones who are destroying it the most. A person who creates his first profile at orkut (or any other Social Networking site) keeps it very clean, and types his profile info and scraps very clearly. Then he spends some time there, sees the profile of their friends, and destroys his language, and the simplicity of the profile.

The first thing – I’m yet to understand the reason behind people constantly changing their Profile names to crappy quotes or annoying self-proclaimed titles such as “lost ma mobile phone” “life looks better now” “i puked yesterday” () or “beauty lies in your attitude” (and those are the First name + Last name). I mean, how the hell someone is going to find them by search utility? For one more reason, how am I supposed to know that the one listed as ‘just special, and is not weird‘ in my friend list is actually “Sophia” when I need to scrap her. People should use the status display to write all this. Changing their name like this actually defeats the purpose of social networking.

Second – the language – The next thing that annoys me most about these Social networks is that people write in a language like

hiiiiiiiii ………………
hieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee….
vveeerrrryyyyy sssssswwweeeeettt
buh-bayee!!
U mst do tis by urself

This looks insane to me. The morons who are obsessed with typing too many i’s and e’s must lower the repeat rate off their Keyboard strokes (Go to Control Panel > Keyboard > Repeat Delay and set it to short). For those who  ignore the red underlines thrown by your spell-checker,  while SMS’ing, you have limited characters, so this may sound OK. But, using this on internet? Don’t you people own a QWERTY keyboard or what? It looks like one of them writes like this because he doesn’t know to write proper English. And then everyone thinks that cool and adopt it.  According to me, that sucks. What is the whole point in writing like that? I feel like an ass deciphering the encrypted scraps and tweets I receive.

Thirdly, the mentality of managing two or more accounts – This is also an issue which beats the whole concept of social networking. How many males I have seen, who have at least one duplicate account, which they run with a fake Female name, use a display pic of a nice looking girl (leached from the WWW, obviously), and have a status which more or less signifies “Boys not allowed” Then they send out requests to girls and chat with them. These losers must get a life. How can they ever believe that they can search for a “love” online? In a country like India, forget about a date with a sweet girl, even a hooker won’t contact you through a social networking site.

With these and some more points (on which, I’ll rant about in later posts), the social networking sites have become a pain for me. My orkut and Facebook accounts, which I used to visit regularly in old days (literally speaking, I had them permanently open in tabs with auto-refresh enabled on the tabs), have now become the least significant place to update me about the issues. I hardly visit them once in a day. How badly I wish that the creators of these sites can come up with some !deas to clean up the mess, and we could relish them in the way we did in the days of their golden glory..

I’ve read occasional bits of his writing, which is good. The excerpts from “The Elephant, The Tiger and The Cellphone” (it is a book authored by Tharoor, for those of you not knowing it) that were published in newspapers showcase a person who is trying to portray an accurate image of India to the west in a very elementary way (in that book at least). Basically, his writings are sort of a Dummies Guide to India.

And in this latest tweet and the news on it, my head hurts. I feel like an alien organism was gestating inside me and is now trying to emerge from my cranium.