how to buzz mefi February 11, 2010 11:45 AM   Subscribe

How did matthowie post a mefi fpp straight to Google Buzz?

See here.

Notice that the source is not Buzz or GoogleReader but Metafilter.
posted by AceRock to MetaFilter-Related at 11:45 AM (104 comments total)

Google Buzz has something called "connected sites" where it pulls in data from other sites where you participate such as Twitter. That way it can show your Twitter posts in Google Buzz. Matt accidentally set up the main MetaFilter feed as one of his personal connected sites, so Google Buzz assumed that everything in the MeFi feed was "by mathowie" and displayed it inline as it would for Twitter or any other service.

Matt assumed it might pull in just his contributions to MeFi somehow, magically. So it was mistake. We're all still learning how Google Buzz works.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:50 AM on February 11, 2010


Here's more about Google Buzz Connected Sites: Connect sites to Buzz. And if you have no idea what Google Buzz is, we recently had an FPP about it here: Go Beyond Status Messages.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:55 AM on February 11, 2010


Yeah, it was an accident. I thought it would only publish posts by me to its stupid service, but it apparently just started piping the RSS feed into Buzz.

I turned it off after I noticed that one post.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:00 PM on February 11, 2010


can someone tell me how to turn off the feature where buzz sends me an email every time someone comments on something I've commented on?

And yes, I too see the irony in all of this
posted by Think_Long at 12:05 PM on February 11, 2010 [2 favorites]


Lifehacker just had a post about that. You need to set up a filter: Hide/Remove Google Buzz Updates from Your Gmail Inbox.
posted by pb (staff) at 12:07 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


Maybe this is just me, but I took Ace Rock's question to be: "How did you add a non-pre-approved rss feed to Buzz?" I can only add Google sites like Blogger and a select few more, like Twitter and Flickr.
posted by anotherpanacea at 12:07 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


I turned it off after I noticed that one post.
posted by mathowie


I've noticed that many of the savviest internet users I know find Google Buzz quite confusing and are strongly opposed to it. This does not bode well for Buzz.
posted by Jaltcoh at 12:09 PM on February 11, 2010 [7 favorites]


Feature? The best feature of buzz I found was the link at the very bottom of gmail: "turn buzz off"
posted by Grither at 12:11 PM on February 11, 2010 [18 favorites]


I just haven't really grasped the point of it all yet. To me it looks like a ton of simultaneously occurring email conversations, but in buzz we can click on the names and instead of the 'compose email' screen, their profile page shows up. I must be missing something.

Also, I have no friends; I should really email more people.
posted by Think_Long at 12:13 PM on February 11, 2010


The best feature of buzz I found was the link at the very bottom of gmail: "turn buzz off"

Hey! Awesome. I am no longer a bee.

Now I begin my search for links for "turn off job" and "turn off assholes."
posted by Skot at 12:20 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


Do you all feel like beta testers for Buzz?
posted by Cranberry at 12:23 PM on February 11, 2010 [2 favorites]


The best feature of buzz I found was the link at the very bottom of gmail: "turn buzz off"

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Oh, man. Thank you so much for that.
Seriously. Thanks.
posted by heyho at 12:30 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


I've noticed some confusion about how it works, but a WHOLE lot more of "christ, another one?"
posted by ersatzkat at 12:30 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]




The best feature of buzz I found was the link at the very bottom of gmail: "turn buzz off"

Useful for those who would think it might be on the "settings" page.
posted by smackfu at 12:38 PM on February 11, 2010


I've noticed some confusion about how it works, but a WHOLE lot more of "christ, another one?"

Yeah, and I would add that the worst thing is that those are both true. A site that's kind of superfluous and frivolous, but really easy and fun to use, might be worthwhile. Or, a groundbreaking and essential site that has a steep learning curve might also be worthwhile. But Google Buzz is the worst of both worlds: irritatingly confusing and utterly unnecessary.
posted by Jaltcoh at 12:38 PM on February 11, 2010


For as much as I love google and their products, I sometimes don't understand them. They killed the well liked Notebook, and replaced it with... nothing. They release Wave, do what they can to get everyone excited about it and then, as far as I can tell, have done nothing to complete the left out functionality or add to the collection of Gadgets which would make it more useful, and now we have Buzz which seems to serve no new purpose and has, because of some very poor choices during the rollout, managed to irritate a lot of the userbase.

I get the idea of "put it out there and let people find their own use for it" mentality, and I respect it, but in this case, forcing people to create profiles in a specific way and not considering privacy concerns up front all make it seem like this was pushed out the gate way too early and without enough thought.
posted by quin at 12:41 PM on February 11, 2010 [2 favorites]


oh shit, so anyone could basically accidentally spam their buzz feed with the entirety of askme? jesus.
posted by shmegegge at 12:43 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


oh shit, so anyone could basically accidentally spam their buzz feed with the entirety of askme?

Anymous's finest hour.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:44 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


As far as posting only your own stuff to buzz why not use your RSS feeds available from the 'My Profile' page?
posted by mnology at 12:45 PM on February 11, 2010


I think what they are going for is to increase their gmail userbase. You need to have gmail to use buzz, right? So with all these people talking about Buzz, I bet Google is trying to get more and more people to be all "Buzz? What's that? I should check it out... oh, I need gmail? Ok, why not?" Followed shortly thereafter by: "HOLY SHIT GMAIL IS THE BEST THING EVER!!!"
posted by Grither at 12:47 PM on February 11, 2010


Jaltcoh: "I've noticed that many of the savviest internet users I know find Google Buzz quite confusing and are strongly opposed to it. This does not bode well for Buzz."

Yeah, when the digerati think something is lame or useless, it tends to fail pretty quickly. Like Twitter, for one recent example. Buzz will fail in exactly the same way as Twitter. Be warned, Google!
posted by Plutor at 12:47 PM on February 11, 2010 [5 favorites]


Followed by clicking on "turn buzz off", and forgetting about buzz entirely.
posted by Grither at 12:47 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


We're all still learning how Google Buzz works

It appears to work by filling by gmail inbox with threaded conversations involving myself and other gmail users whom I know.

Which is pretty much exactly what my gmail inbox was already (too) full of.

Maybe I'm old, but I really, really don't get it.

The best feature of buzz I found was the link at the very bottom of gmail: "turn buzz off"

*click*

Thanks Grither!
posted by Nothing... and like it at 12:54 PM on February 11, 2010


Jaltcoh: "I've noticed that many of the savviest internet users I know find Google Buzz quite confusing and are strongly opposed to it. This does not bode well for Buzz."

Yeah, when the digerati think something is lame or useless, it tends to fail pretty quickly. Like Twitter, for one recent example.


Did the digerati think Twitter was "confusing"? Because that's what I'm saying about Google Buzz. I'm not saying: if mathowie, and I, and other savvy internet users, don't like it, it will fail with a general audience. I'm saying: if mathowie, and I, and other savvy internet users, find it unacceptably confusing and unwieldy, it will fail with a general audience.
posted by Jaltcoh at 1:02 PM on February 11, 2010


This seems like a good place to warn people that Google Buzz contains a massive privacy flaw.

Even if people have Buzz turned off, you can now see who they e-mail most frequently unless they opt out.
posted by painquale at 1:02 PM on February 11, 2010


Now if only I could figure out how I added my blog was available to add to Buzz I'd tell you all how to add your guys's stuff... I think it has something to do with telling Google to index it, which seems wrong.
posted by mnology at 1:04 PM on February 11, 2010


This seems like a good place to warn people that Google Buzz contains a massive privacy flaw.

Even if people have Buzz turned off, you can now see who they e-mail most frequently unless they opt out.


Wait, really? I've read that article you linked to, but I don't see where it says this problem will happen even if you have Buzz turned off.
posted by Jaltcoh at 1:11 PM on February 11, 2010


Is this something I'd need a gmail account to not understand?
posted by davejay at 1:12 PM on February 11, 2010 [4 favorites]


I don't see where it says this problem will happen even if you have Buzz turned off.

When you turn Buzz off, it doesn't change that setting back in your profile, because Google considers Google Profile and Google Buzz to be distinct or something.
posted by smackfu at 1:23 PM on February 11, 2010


Yeah, Buzz is no picnic to use. Reader is similarly incomprehensible, and I've had to trade tips with people about how to do really simple things, and sometimes the functionality changes for no reason and without warning (html doesn't seem to work anymore, for instance) but Reader is incredibly useful and powerful. I think I'm gonna turn off Buzz. I'll give it a few more days, just to see if something interesting happens, but as is it's both hard to use and adds little to my life.
posted by Kattullus at 1:29 PM on February 11, 2010


I love the UI, actually -- it is intuitive and built perfectly into Gmail. What I hate is Google not letting me be private and have facebook-style approval-first control over who follows me.

I love Google + use their web stuff all the time. But I will not be using Buzz until that fucking public profile shit isn't a prereq.
posted by Damn That Television at 1:39 PM on February 11, 2010


Greg Nog: I don't get the confusing / hard to use thing.

The connected sites thing has been causing the most trouble for people. Oh, and then there was that thing where Google decided it would be a good idea to post your GMail contacts list in your profile for the world to see. They don't really tell you that very clearly, or at least many people I know were shocked to find out once they'd been told. Also, it's hard to take that information off the web.
posted by Kattullus at 1:44 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


Could people who dislike Buzz say more about why the UI grates on them?

It's not the UI so much as this happened in my inbox.
posted by oinopaponton at 1:44 PM on February 11, 2010 [4 favorites]


It seems to be more intuitive to me than facebook's UI. Maybe it's because I'm more accustomed to Gmail now, and Buzz is an extension of that. I've tried a few times, but for the life of me I still can't really "understand" how facebook works - the design feels entirely arbitrary to me.
posted by Think_Long at 1:49 PM on February 11, 2010


I've already used Buzz more in five hours than I've used twitter in five months.

Being integrated into gmail is a win for me. Being integrated into google reader is a game ender: I go through a huge amount of feeds and being able to share what I find with people who don't use reader is a win. Since Facebook makes this somewhere between awkward and impossible and nobody I know outside of twitter uses twitter...

You can mute buzz conversations the same way you can mute gmail conversations, hit the little down arrow next to "Comment" and hit "Mute this post".
posted by Skorgu at 1:52 PM on February 11, 2010 [2 favorites]


Greg Nog: "I don't get the confusing / hard to use thing. I actually found it to be fairly straightforward and instinctive. Could people who dislike Buzz say more about why the UI grates on them"

I just went to look at it. There are people I don't know following me. Why? Who are they? What are their intentions? Are they nice? I hope they're nice.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:57 PM on February 11, 2010 [4 favorites]


Meanwhile Matt offers to SELL ASK.METAFILTER.COM!! Is this the end of an era? Why does Matt hate Metafilter? Has this all been a big SEO scam to pump up the asking price??!?!?!
posted by blue_beetle at 1:58 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


It's not the UI so much as this happened in my inbox.

I googled turning that off, and the answer is you can't, but the dirty fix for now is to create a filter stuff labeled "buzz" that sends those emails straight to the trash.

which is stupid. it is my major complaint even though on the whole I think buzz is fun as hell.
posted by shmegegge at 1:59 PM on February 11, 2010


There are people I don't know following me. Why? Who are they? What are their intentions? Are they nice? I hope they're nice.

this is true of twitter, too. what I think makes this slightly more disconcerting in buzz is that you can have whole conversations that the people following you are reading, not only if they're following YOUR feed, but if they're following SOMEONE ELSE you're commenting with. like AIM logs that are shared with the world. it will take getting used to.
posted by shmegegge at 2:01 PM on February 11, 2010


I have two Twitter accounts; one private (or as private as these things get) and one public. I'm not getting the impression that Buzz will let me do that.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:06 PM on February 11, 2010


Isn't just like the newsfeed thing on facebook though? Just without the enable-privacy option.

I've already had to tell my sister to stop updating her buzz so much, it's annoying me.
posted by Think_Long at 2:07 PM on February 11, 2010


just to be clear: I think mathowie's buzz is still posting the mefi rss feed.
posted by shmegegge at 2:07 PM on February 11, 2010


The Mefi RSS feed harshes my life google buzz.
posted by qvantamon at 2:11 PM on February 11, 2010


hm, skorgu: I don't know anyone using Buzz who isn't already using Google Reader?
posted by jacalata at 2:27 PM on February 11, 2010


I'm glad I was able to turn off Buzz, but I'm upset that there's no way to disable Google's annoying real-time search. (Well there is, but it requires Greasemonkey.)
posted by alligatorman at 2:29 PM on February 11, 2010


wait a minute. Now it automatically updates my reader with everyone else's? grrrrrrr It was supposed to be so easy
posted by Think_Long at 2:33 PM on February 11, 2010


I kinda like buzz, although it's a ripoff variation on Friendfeed (the principle being: post or import your stuff from across various sources, have people comment/"like" items, show items in realtime). It looks like the newsfeed in facebook mainly because FF was bought by facebook last year, and I think the core technology was brought into facebook with the last revamping. (at least one of the original FF team -that I know of- is a mefite, by the way)

Some time ago, I set up on Friendfeed a multi-feed 'room' (or group) with all the MeFi feeds here. Read away, it's a sort of realtime-ish (I guess it depends on the feedburner update frequency) MeFi ticker tape. Suggestions to automagically import comment feeds under each post are welcome!

By the way, I found this post interesting.
Why does Buzz even exist? Is it because Google wants to make my life better in some way? No. Buzz exists because Google feels threatened by Twitter and Facebook and wants to kill them. Google has become what Microsoft used to be—the Borg, the company that gobbles up ideas from smaller rivals and cranks out lame imitations in an attempt to put the little guys out of business.


posted by _dario at 2:41 PM on February 11, 2010 [2 favorites]


also: opt-in, Google. FFS.
posted by _dario at 2:43 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


how is mathowie formed? how fpp get buzed?
posted by Eideteker at 2:54 PM on February 11, 2010 [7 favorites]


my pary are with the feeder
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:57 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


The best feature of buzz I found was the link at the very bottom of gmail: "turn buzz off"

THANK YOU!!
posted by pompomtom at 3:02 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


The option to have people you don't know read your thoughts apply to pretty much every other online publishing medium. The default in Wordpress and Twitter and Livejournal is public, and then you opt to turn that private. Buzz actually allows for a lot of different levels of privacy and user groups, much like LJ, which is why I can see it becoming interesting (I loved the group-conversation aspect of LJ, but most of my F-list migrated to Facebook). If you're concerned about people reading your conversations, make them private. I don't see why there's such an outcry over this. (Except maybe because it's integrated into Gmail and people associate "things that have something to do with my email account" with "private"?)
posted by Phire at 3:02 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


I hid the buzz at first, and then I turned the buzz off. So I have a hidden off buzz. Which anyone who knows me could tell by looking at me anyhow.

Since I use gmail for my work/mefi/personal email [and already had a Google profile] buzz's emergence basically suddenly made me connected to, as near as I could tell, everyone. This is too many people.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:09 PM on February 11, 2010 [4 favorites]


buzz + reader is pretty awesome.
posted by empath at 3:24 PM on February 11, 2010 [2 favorites]


Greg Nog: "I started a buzz about how much do I like bees "

Gosh I wonder how m...

Greg Nog: "(SPOILER: VERY MUCH) "

OH COME ON I JUST GOT INTO CARING ABOUT YOUR OPINION ON BEES
posted by boo_radley at 3:24 PM on February 11, 2010 [7 favorites]


The reason I don't like it is because it seems like a Facebook-style networking thing, only everyone I have ever emailed is automatically added as my friend. Er.

Since I use gmail for my work/mefi/personal email [and already had a Google profile] buzz's emergence basically suddenly made me connected to, as near as I could tell, everyone. This is too many people.

Yeah, this basically.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:38 PM on February 11, 2010


I started a buzz about how much do I like bees
BEADS?
posted by WolfDaddy at 4:13 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


I like Buzz. We'll see if I continue to like it, but I do. Like Greg Nog above, I'm not having that much trouble with it, either; I've found it pretty clear between public/private, and things like that.

only everyone I have ever emailed is automatically added as my friend

Am I the only one this didn't happen to at all? Yeah, it added about 12-15 people I email regularly, and told me the first time I logged in, so I could remove them if I wanted.
posted by inigo2 at 4:17 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


I started a buzz about how much do I like bees

What kind of bee is best?
posted by inigo2 at 4:17 PM on February 11, 2010


the beedog are best.
posted by carsonb at 4:25 PM on February 11, 2010


Typing in "turn off" in my search bar autocompletes to "turn off google buzz" as the first entry. Which was exactly what I was searching for! Thanks again, Google!
posted by Errant at 4:26 PM on February 11, 2010 [2 favorites]


take it to buzz, you people.


HEY MODS I WANNA ELEVATOR PITCH SOMETHING TO YOU:

[ ] When I make a metafilter post, post it to twitter
[ ] When I make a metafilter post, post it to (service)

This would be awesome. I got friends on social services who aren't metafilter people.

BAM THAT IS MY PITCH

Thank you in advance for any consideration.
posted by boo_radley at 4:26 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


I endorse boo_radley's pony. That sounds like a great idea.
posted by brundlefly at 4:39 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


BAM THAT IS MY PITCH

BAM THIS IS MY ANSWER

No!

You are welcome. Teach your friends to use RSS.

Seriously, at the point at which we are using words like "elevator pitch" to describe feature requests, it may be time for you to leave the nest. I'm okay with this. You know you are my favorite boo_radley after my sister's cat, but maybe you need a bigger pool to swim in, larger fish to fry, dare I say a more exciting website, one with images? Really, it's okay. I hear images are nice sometimes.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:34 PM on February 11, 2010 [7 favorites]


And because I am such a dork I'd like to offer you the olive branch of importing your MeFi posts into Facebook by setting it up here using your unique RSS feed. Or you can do this on Twitter, Tumblr or yes, Buzz. Really anything that will take an RSS import can be a reposter of your MeFi content. I think.



And now it occurs to me that you are probably joking but I honestly can't tell anymore. These kids with their buzzing and their tumbling.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:55 PM on February 11, 2010 [3 favorites]


See boo_radley, I told you not to fart during your elevator pitch!
posted by qvantamon at 5:58 PM on February 11, 2010


Why does Buzz even exist? Is it because Google wants to make my life better in some way? No. Buzz exists because Google feels threatened by Twitter and Facebook and wants to kill them.

He says this as though killing Facebook and Twitter wouldn't make my life better.

That is the worst logo for anything ever, though. It looks like someone stepped on a Windows logo.
posted by enn at 6:04 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


holy shit guys i am so buzzed rigth now
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:10 PM on February 11, 2010 [2 favorites]


I hear images are nice sometimes.

If *we* had images we could all be looking at Jessamyn's sister's cat right now.
posted by shelleycat at 6:17 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


If you can click it, you can dream it.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:21 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


jessamyn, that "Buzz" link requires that you be able to

"edit the site you want to feed to Google Buzz and add<br> to the HTML header or
<a href="http://www.google.com/profiles/example">My Google profile</a>to the page itself."


This does look like it might be something that Metafilter could support if it wanted.
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:22 PM on February 11, 2010


hrm.... that worked on preview.
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:24 PM on February 11, 2010


If you can click it, you can dream it.

I'm going to make a sequel to the Terebithia move set in Second Life, and this will be the tagline. Y'all can thank me later.
posted by Think_Long at 6:25 PM on February 11, 2010


I can click it! Mefi taught me how to middle click with my mouse (no seriously, I needed mefi for that).

That skinny kitty pretty much made my day. And it was a shitty shitty day so it needed to be made. (Oh, shitty and kitty rhymed. That was not intentional).
posted by shelleycat at 6:28 PM on February 11, 2010


jessamyn, after doing some brief research, I accept your olive branch. Sadly, I do not have a facebook, and the radioactive butt-echolocation moth mascot of twitterfeed weirds me out. Alas, I shall have to tweet my posts manually.
posted by boo_radley at 6:30 PM on February 11, 2010


huh, I guess I pictured your sister's cat as a maine coon. I don't know why.
posted by boo_radley at 6:31 PM on February 11, 2010


Ha ha ha ha ha
It has edit, with no strikethrough. Nothing to indicate.
posted by vapidave at 6:33 PM on February 11, 2010


fuck new things
posted by secret about box at 7:22 PM on February 11, 2010 [5 favorites]


vapidave, you can strikethrough. From ReadWriteWeb:
(*)word(*) = bold

(_)word(_) = italics

(-)word(-) = strikethrough

(--) = em-dash

Note: Use those without the ()
posted by ocherdraco at 7:54 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


Buzz is FriendFeed is microMetafilter is good/bad depending.
posted by unknowncommand at 9:59 PM on February 11, 2010


My shitty shitty day has been ameliorated by much vodka and repeat viewing of the skinny wet kitty. Plus turning off buzz in my gmail account. Crazy the things that get you through.
posted by shelleycat at 11:17 PM on February 11, 2010 [2 favorites]


"vapidave, you can strikethrough."

Er, meant it doesn't automatically but thanks cause me and the wife were just talking about not being able to indicate edits without it being clunky and "Edit:" doesn't stand out as much as "Strike". I was looking for the little clicky things of course.
posted by vapidave at 12:17 AM on February 12, 2010


Am I the only one this didn't happen to at all? Yeah, it added about 12-15 people I email regularly, and told me the first time I logged in, so I could remove them if I wanted.

Well, to fair, this is more accurate. It added about 8 of my friends I email regularly, a couple of people I had no idea who they were, and a restaurant I emailed once two weeks ago about a reservation. I think it's more the implication/assumption that you are now connected to everyone in your contact list that people are worried about, and Google's mistake is not making it (more) obvious that this is not the case.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:14 AM on February 12, 2010


BEADS?

WolfDaddy's not on board.
posted by SpiffyRob at 5:38 AM on February 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I wonder if the split among people who don't and do like Buzz follows along the lines of people who use gmail as an IMAP store vs. people who use the web interface. Because I'm not especially fond of the web interface and use it maybe once a month or so, thus Buzz presents itself in a place where I'm loathe to look. It seems to have some email features as well, for those of us who are IMAP people, but the last thing in the universe I ever want is more shit I barely care about in my gmail inbox.

Maybe I'm just old and out of touch, but I still prefer that people who want to get in touch with me just send me an email or IM me or something. I don't need a bunch of intermediary services added that increase rather than decrease the traffic that needs my attention.

So yeah, I hope they work out some use for the thing, and I wish them well, but layering this on top of all the other shit I need to read and respond to in the course of a day isn't really welcome with me at this point.
posted by majick at 6:04 AM on February 12, 2010


I too would like a desktop app for Buzz, ideally integration with Socialite for Mac OS X.

Anecdata: tried "adding" Greg Nog to my Buzz list using the email in his profile. It kept telling me that it couldn't find the user (or whatever its error is). Next time I logged in, though, his post about parrots v butter was right there in the feed.

Also, thanks to #1's fearless adventurism, I've taken the opportunity to put my own posts to the blue, as well as my favorited posts, in my Google Reader (and thus Buzz). Status updates are sent to Twitter, which feeds 'em to Buzz and Facebook - thus I'm 'broadcasting' quite easily, and don't feel like I have to expend any additional 'effort' to keep up with things.

It's too bad all this social media distracts me from getting a job; then I could afford the shareware fee for Socialite and use more than 2 feeds at a time...
posted by jtron at 6:22 AM on February 12, 2010


It added about 8 of my friends I email regularly, a couple of people I had no idea who they were, and a restaurant I emailed once two weeks ago about a reservation.

Yeah, I got some random person added too. And you can only see their name, and that name doesn't come up in a search of my inbox or contacts, so WTF?
posted by smackfu at 6:27 AM on February 12, 2010


awww sleepy fuzzy wuzzy head kitty
posted by The Whelk at 6:47 AM on February 12, 2010


This is like when an older person who I had to explain Facebook to later on asked me why I wasn't on LinkedIn. BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL THE SAME AND YOU SHOULD BE ON ALL OF THEM. FOREVER. Google is like that lady.

GOOGLE: I hear you like to tweet your twats. I've got something better than tweeting, buzzing. (Unlike twitter, it goes to 11).
ME: meh.
GOOGLE: Why you no love buzz? You love tweets. Buzz is SAME! BUZZ IS SAME!

Or maybe it's more like that Patton Oswalt bit about trying to program his TiVo. It's trying so hard and failing so much.
posted by edbles at 10:16 AM on February 12, 2010


>> oh shit, so anyone could basically accidentally spam their buzz feed with the entirety of askme?
>
> Anymous's finest hour.
> posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:44 PM on February 11 [1 favorite +] [!]

So far. Looking for new worlds to conquer, anon reflects that 4chan has RSS and Atom feeds.
posted by jfuller at 10:21 AM on February 12, 2010


asked me why I wasn't on LinkedIn.

I kind of see the point of LinkedIn though. It's like the social network version of exchanging business cards... and that's it.
posted by smackfu at 10:34 AM on February 12, 2010


Oh, I see how that looks. I wasn't trying to trash LinkedIn. I should clarify. At the time I had no need for LinkedIn, because I was still in college/first job out of college/not being an adult. LinkedIn has a separate well defined niche it carved out of the social networking archipelago. I meant that she assumed that because I was using one social networking service at all that I would like to use all social networking services regardless of their functionality.
posted by edbles at 10:47 AM on February 12, 2010


And people wonder why I want an alternative to Gmail...
posted by Solomon at 10:56 AM on February 12, 2010


I don't get the confusing / hard to use thing. I actually found it to be fairly straightforward and instinctive. Could people who dislike Buzz say more about why the UI grates on them?

I think the problem with the UI is that it's a little too intuitive, and not instructive enough. It's really easy to post "Buzzes" and replies, but once you do it's hard to tell who sees them. Is it public to the whole world? Do the pictures get uploaded to picasa? If I add twitter, do private twitter messages show up in Buzz? (Probably not, but it's hard to tell)

It's possible to figure out, and apparently they've made some tweeks in the past few days (more options to block, getting rid of showing followers by default) and so on.

So that's my general complaint about adding "social" software to gmail. When you sign up for a new site, you have a pretty good idea what's going to be on it, what data is going to be shared. But if you suddenly add "social" to an existing app, and it's privacy settings are confusing, that's bad. And most people have their real names associated with their Gmail accounts.

On the other hand, you might not understand the privacy controls of twitter, but until you do you only have to post public messages, and you don't have to put your real name on it either, so its far less annoying. Once you figure out more of the privacy settings, you can do things like private messages, etc.
Meanwhile Matt offers to SELL ASK.METAFILTER.COM!! Is this the end of an era? Why does Matt hate Metafilter? Has this all been a big SEO scam to pump up the asking price??!?!?!
Just $25 million dollars? Are we that cheap!?
Why does Buzz even exist? Is it because Google wants to make my life better in some way? No. Buzz exists because Google feels threatened by Twitter and Facebook and wants to kill them. Google has become what Microsoft used to be—the Borg, the company that gobbles up ideas from smaller rivals and cranks out lame imitations in an attempt to put the little guys out of business.
Interesting point. And the "integration with Gmail" is kind of like Google's answer for "integration with windows". Still, privacy concerns aside I actually prefer Buzz to facebook. Facebook sucks as a company and the U.I. sucks too. It's only popular because it was better then MySpace. And buzz is easier to use, I think, then Facebook.
posted by delmoi at 11:28 AM on February 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


delmoi: Just $25 million dollars? Are we that cheap!?

That's about $250 per user. I'd sell out for that. Hell, I've sold out ib the past for nothing more than a shiny dongle.
posted by Kattullus at 12:39 PM on February 12, 2010


That would be brilliant for a site to sell out and then cut all the users a check. For $25 mil, you could pocket $15 mil and give everyone $100.

(I am in favor of this plan.)
posted by smackfu at 12:41 PM on February 12, 2010


And that's assuming the 100k users are actual users - aren't 2/3rd s of them aborted signups? Meaning. . . ~ $300 apiece? I could buy a lot of sockpuppets with that kind of dough.
posted by Think_Long at 12:51 PM on February 12, 2010


That would be brilliant for a site to sell out and then cut all the users a check. For $25 mil, you could pocket $15 mil and give everyone $100.

OR Matt could pocket $20 mil and give me $5 mil. I'm just looking out for your best interests, Matt!

(I am in favor of this plan.)
posted by inigo2 at 1:03 PM on February 12, 2010


Heh, we were just recording the next podcast and talking about this a little bit. I haven't followed Aardvark's arc as a company but the key thing here seems to be that they built and engine, which is something salable and (hopefully for Google) scalable in a fairly direct way.

I know we're joking around in any case, but my take is that AskMe's status as more a community than an engine makes a startup-buyout-type offer pretty unlikely; and at the same time, I have a hard time imagining a buyout offer that did happen actually being worth anything like the site's real subjective value to the folks here. Sort of a double whammy.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:20 PM on February 12, 2010


Conde Nast bought reddit for millions, so anything can happen.
posted by smackfu at 1:23 PM on February 12, 2010


At the time I had no need for LinkedIn, because I was still in college/first job out of college/not being an adult.

Getting your first job out of college seems like exactly the right time to join LinkedIn, doesn't it?
posted by jacalata at 2:25 PM on February 12, 2010


either I had to change my email given in my mefi profile or change my google profile nickname. i made my choice.
posted by infini at 11:53 AM on February 13, 2010


As far as selling AskMe goes, I was thinking Matt was planning on going the Tom from Myspace route. (NSFW)
posted by anifinder at 8:42 AM on February 14, 2010


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