Humming the Buzz

It had hardly been a month that people stopped asking for Google Wave invites on Facebook when I hear the first buzz about Buzz!! I’m no tech freak but give me a chance to check out a new social networking tool - I’m on it and how! Curious and excited, I log on to Gmail and there it is. The cute little colorful icon tucked in nicely between the Inbox and Sent Mail tabs! The Google wizards smartly integrated this within Gmail – people who don’t really network online would get the chance to try it out without actually doing more than clicking on the icon. Clever in-deed!

Apart from the convenience provided (thanks to its strategically placed position), Buzz helps in adding friends to follow (thanks to the massive installed user base already in place). Not only that, it even connects to Flickr, Picasa and Youtube (I don’t know what to thank here). Twitter tweets also find themselves integrated in between buzzes. Unlike the limited texting space that Twitter constrained us with, Buzz gives us unlimited space to text, post and share. This information was more than enough for me to click that icon.

But, a BIG but, clicking on it was a bad idea. All I saw was Google giving me options to choose who I want to follow! “FOLLOW” - Now where have I heard that before?? Twitter of course! Then I see Buzz explaining itself with a “Post pictures, videos or any link you want to”! And that was all for me to make my first entry.

There it was - Mistake #2!! Consequences of this mistake – my Inbox being flooded with Buzz news! Apparently I’m already following a few of my Gmail contacts. That was still ok. What bugged me most was getting random ads from some Mrs. X about why I should take a vacation in Maldives with colorful exciting pictures as justification tools and a certain Mr. Y asking me to check out random video songs on YouTube!! Why are THEY telling me what to do on MY buzz?? Why is Google invading my privacy like this? I might mail a certain number of people regularly but that in no way means I want to connect with them socially.

Who gives Google the right to make innocent people like us follow such random ads? Certainly not their exclusive search filter. Google techies might wear a lot of hats but stupid isn’t one of them!

I must confess though that Facebook being my eternal love, biasness could creep in my observations. Three years back Buzz would have been a success but now people already have Facebook and Twitter.

I wonder, however, is Buzz simply a step towards Wave (Remember the royal ignore we gave to Wave after we finally got its invites?) Or are they just caving in to their Attention Deficiency Syndrome? Let’s see what buzz Buzz creates for the buzzers in us!

Shveta is a student at IIFT Kolkata. Prior to this, she spent her last four years "trying" to study Computer Science from NIT Kurukshetra. Now she writes IT-related articles to help the common man understand what she should understand. But never could. Other than this, she spends most of her time on Facebook when the other primitive tasks like sleeping and eating have been over-worked on.