Googie is said to be 'taking on' Facebook. In our culture of competition it should keep prices down and add new features to compete with old models. I wish we could describe new ventures in less than pugilistic terms. If we truly have free enterprise, why does our media only imply unpleasant interaction and competition. I look at it all as another learning curve, yet another time consuming project for which I will not have enough time to do justice, and know that all the friends on these things, looking for replies from me, will figure I've died off, as many of my friends have, when they get no response for a month.
Buzz, the new social network service - integrated directly with Google's e-mail service Gmail - allows users to post status updates, share content and read and comment on friends' posts.
The site offers a similar way of contacting friends and staying socially connected as Facebook, which has amassed nearly 400 million users since its start in 2004.
Buzz will try to capitalize on the number of regular Gmail users, which is currently around 170 million people. Having an already huge base from which to entice new takers to Buzz is a real plus in today's budding new market. Users will be able to
post private or public status updates - known as a buzz - and share content from other sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Picassa.
George Orwell (in 1984) gave us Big Brother.
We have surpassed the lack of privacy and paranoia of Big Brother and reached a higher plane. Excitement comes from seeing a friend write on the wall, "I just ate a big dish of ice cream." or, "Now I have to do the dishes!" and the thrill of receiving all this wonderful information from your friends is that it it FREE!. (Of your not getting it on your iPhone, anyway_
Measuring how many minutes are left to this old life, I marvel at how little of mine will be spent in this 'togetherness' contact. I fantasy what life might be like for all these participants in a few years. I am blessed with complete confidence that my adult children will never call me to tell me that they are about to eat supper, or, equally similar contacts that waste my and their time when life is too short anyway!. And if my friends do it, I will wonder what they are doing to lack a life.
Nevertheless, I will look into Buzz as I have many of other products out there. I will undoubtedly, if for no more reason than to be able to understand what everyone is talking about, use it just enough to annoy people when they connect with me but I don't answer them. I have no desire to stay velcroed to anyone alive who needs to text, tweet, chat, Facebook, find all their classmates whhom they had no interest in while in school, join all the Forums, or prevent me from finding time just to live.
For more on Buzz, read Rafe Needleman and Josh Lowensohn: Rafe and John Debate Google's Buzz.
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