Hamas War

Saturday, February 13, 2010

What's This Google Buzz?

The latest internet buzz is about google's buzz.  I figured that I ought to check it out.  It's connected to Gmail, which I have but don't actively use.  It's more like a back-up, an "insurance policy" of sorts.  I prefer emailing from yahoo, the old yahoo classic, not the new one which reminds me of Gmail.

Now, yahoo also has some faux facebook and twitter features which I ignore.  I once set up a "yahoo identity" with a picture of me at the age of 8, which appears if I comment on a yahoo news item.  That picture and a "Hello Batya!" are next to a box which asks me: "What are you doing now?"  I've never answered, since it's obvious that I'm trying to answer my emails and update my blogs etc.  If someone I email with yahoos, too, and sees I'm online he/she can chat with me, but I don't really feel like doing more than that.

Not everyone I know yahoos, and not everyone googles/gmails.  Grammar purists, more extreme than myself, may object to my using these words as verbs, but why not, if you can fax and email...

My twitter account is mostly an automatic update posting my blogs.  And my facebook is a bit more active.  The posts from this blog go up automatically, and people sometimes comment.

I still prefer blogging, because you don't need to sign in or up to read blogs.  It's more unifying.

Now that I've seen it, I'm really not interested in the google buzz.  Anyone with Gmail accounts should keep checking their google buzz, because you have to option to block anyone who wants to follow you.
"Your Google Reader shared items, Picasa Web public albums, and Google Chat status messages will automatically appear as posts in Buzz. To edit your connected sites or change privacy settings, view connected sites."
Ignorance is not bliss.  By clicking into it, you can block sites and features like youtube etc or you may use it to promote blogs.  By ignoring it, you're opening your Gmail and google connections more than you may like. 

2 comments:

Mr. Gerson said...

You can completely disable it with one click at the bottom of the page: disable Buzz.

Batya said...

I didn't notice it, but does it take one's email out of the data base? That's the problem, the gmail database. If you opt into buzz, you have these search options to find people to "follow." If you don't want to be followed and don't want to keep checking and blocking, you're up a creek.