Archive | February, 2010

5 Must-Have Features for Buzz

15 Feb

DISCLAIMER: I am on a plane and am officially groggy blogging.

Ok, so I have been using (strong word) Google Buzz and I – like all geeks – have compiled my wish-list of features.  So let it be written, so let it be done.

MUST HAVE FEATURES:  

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  1. Better summary of recent posts – it’s difficult to quickly skim and see if something’s interesting…this narrows the funnel for time spent
  2. Better real-time view – it’s tough to see when people buzz if they are responding to someone’s post…lame

Microsoft fires back at Buzz – Introducing Social Connector for Outlook

13 Feb

Amidst all the buzz around Google Buzz, Microsoft fires their own shot across the bow via the Outlook desktop email client – Social Connector.  According to the Microsoft Blog:

The Outlook Social Connector is a set of new features to help keep track of your friends and colleagues while enabling you to grow your professional network. The Outlook Social Connector is available now as part of the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta.  

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Google Buzz Launches Social Inbox Wars

11 Feb

Google has officially started a war.  With the launch of their life-streaming product this week, Buzz, competitors with established mail products such as Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL are now officially on notice.  Get social – fast.

Buzz is Google’s response to Twitter.  For those of you that have tried the product, you will quickly see that the best part about Buzz is the fact that it is integrated with Gmail.  Aside from that, there is no massive innovation relative to established ‘Lifestream’ products like Facebook and Twitter that enable you to socialize around user’s activities.  You can follow people’s updates, they can follow you, yadda yadda.  I will say, however, it was very slick how they pre-populate some of that information based on your Google Profile/Mail.  All in all, it was a smart move by Google to launch it via Gmail as it is a great enhancement to their communication suite (mail, chat).  

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