Men are never brave, are they? - Cherie Blair
|
|
|
Google continues Buzz-off
PRIVACY BUNGLER Google is continuing to roll back features and elements of its Buzz social notworking tool.
Since its launch last week Buzz has met with howls of criticism, and the firm has rushed to address it. Today in a blog post the company said, "We've heard your feedback loud and clear, and since we launched Google Buzz four days ago, we've been working around the clock to address the concerns you've raised. Today, we wanted to let you know about a number of changes we'll be making over the next few days based on all the feedback we've received."
One of the first things to be addressed is auto-following, which has been refined so that just the people you are in contact with regularly are included in your list of followers. This is expected to counter many of the privacy complaints that have been thrown at the firm. "We're moving to an auto-suggest model. You won't be set up to follow anyone until you have reviewed the suggestions and clicked "Follow selected people and start using Buzz," explained Google.
Further calming down the privacy sensitive, Buzz will no longer automatically connect any public Picasa photo albums and Google Reader items automatically, which when you write it down makes it seem incredible that the firm would ever have done that in the first place.
A new tab within Gmail will make it easier to opt out of Buzz, in fact much easier. Previously the 'turn off Buzz' option was lurking at the bottom of the screen in a rather small font.
"It's been an exciting and challenging week for the Buzz team", wrote the, er, Buzz team to the sound of stable doors being slammed shut. "We've been getting feedback via the Gmail help forums and emails from friends and family, and we've also been able to do something new: read the buzz about Buzz itself. We quickly realised that we didn't get everything quite right. We're very sorry for the concern we've caused and have been working hard ever since to improve things based on your feedback. We'll continue to do so."
But we still wonder where all the adults at Google were when it decided to turn on Buzz in the first place. µ
Share this:
Share
I'm a huge fan of Google and almost everything they do...
But this act of them disappoints, just launching this on us gmail users is just plain stupid, arrogant and totally unnecessary.
I would expect this kind of behaviour from facebook and microsoft but not from google.
Why not give invites to users to use the service like Gmail and Wave and let them choose who to invite or connect to.
e-mail in general is very personal and private business too most people, which should NOT be treated like the facebook crowd, where friends are forced down you throat, and privacy is treated like a joke.
"But we still wonder where all the adults at Google were when it decided to turn on Buzz in the first place."
They wouldn't have gotten a tenth of the splash if hadn't been fouled up. Now they can leave in yet worse but non-obvious features without any complaints.
As someone else said:
"Don't ask yourself the meaning of a folly, ask yourself only what it accomplishes."
Drashek, is that you?
Google Probalby wouldn't Think Archieveing Photos' of Family Bods' too Cool. Expect Knock On Door.
When IE8 Came Out With Sugggested Sites, SS Was Consdered Possible privacy Snather. NO WAY. Sugessted Sites triple Your Favs & Make Browsing Less of Repeative Chore, Plus Commentos' Swell from New space Alien Siteings' & Galoree' Photos'.
Turn On Suggested Sites in control panel intenet on Last page check list. set up IE8 with suggeted Sites On & Updates On, ask for more accelerators, too. pick few out, almost worhless.
Nothing Like BUZZ SAW to Square theREADERS' Waves. Generation After Generation, Falling to never Ending Sound of that 'ole Southern Factorys' HUM Job. Be Amoung first to Lose.
Israels' Paramilatary Conscription of ALL Youth, Sending them Here to Hunt Down OUR Homes & Say Nothing. Buzzzzz'd.
Ring,Ring. PostMan.....& Do Mean POST.
Signed:BEWARNED.
"But we still wonder where all the adults at Google were when it decided to turn on Buzz in the first place."
You really don't recognize the value of integrating micro-blogging with a user's primary communications client (i.e. email for most adults)? Seems obvious as hell to me.
From my understanding, clicking Buzz off doesn't actually disable Buzz, it just hides it. But I really don't know if that's true or not. There's so much confusion about what Buzz does and doesn't do, it's scary. Google needs to learn to communicate better with it's users. For all i know, most of the concerns are because people misunderstood what the service actually does and doesn't do.