Google, You Are Killing Me!
Google, you know you guys are killing me right? It is not easy being a Google fanboy as it is. To top everything off, I got the Buzz invite in my gmail like everyone else. In true fanboy fashion I configured it right away. Now what do I do with it?
My first instinct was to integrate it with my blog. Well good luck finding information about adding a buzz button to my posts. What do you suppose was the first thing I did to find out how to do that? I GOOGLED IT! I typed this into the search box: Google buzz button howto. There was not a single entry from Google about Google Buzz. I mean, it’s understandable. It’s not like you guys OWN A SEARCH ENGINE!!!!!
To be sure, there are plenty of work-arounds from people around the Net on how to piece one together, but do I want to grab a snippet of code from some dude in China to implement a Google feature??? I think not.
I found a link on Mashable for buzz.google.com. Curious that searching Google for buzz does not yield this link. Then on Google’s own Buzz page, there is almost no interactive content; just a link for mobile integration. It gives information I guess…in a minimalist sort of way. It would be like looking up an article on driving and finding only, “It can get you from here to there.” Yea, AND…!
After running the quick config script in my gmail Buzz section, I got the basic setup. Guys, even before people understood how to use Twitter, they had the simple instruction ‘just type what you are doing’ under the box. Ok, I won’t just gripe. Here is a substantive suggestion: Move the Buzz section out of the gmail folder links area and make it a tab above the inbox pane. On this top pane you should have two tabs (maybe three): Mail | Buzz | Tasks. Clicking one of these should devote the entire screen or at least the inner pane, to that function.
If you do it as suggested above, you can click a pane and expect a different interface, which is to be used for a different purpose. Clicking the links on the left in the gmail section to access completely different products just seems unintuitive to me. Having the links together decreases the differentiation between these two products. If the plan is to blur the line between mail and real-time content, “abandon all hope ye who enter here.” This will not work. More importantly, this SHOULD not work. I use email for an entirely different purpose than Twitter or Friendfeed. You will sooner be successful blurring the line between vinegar and chocolate before you succeed here. Better yet, just put the link at the top before Calendar and Documents. Just my 2¢ dogs…
