Is the newest Google.com rollout a "G-force" to be reckoned with or just a flop?
Gmail users everywhere were recently introduced to Google Buzz, a new social networking tool that combines Gmail contacts with features of Facebook.com and Twitter.com.
Billed as a way to combat user's feelings of being overwhelmed by an excess of social media, Buzz appears as a tab on the Gmail Web site and allows users to link their accounts from Web sites like Twitter, Flickr.com and Google's own Picasa.com so that their social media activity appears in one integrated feed. Facebook is noticeably missing from the list of Web sites currently supported by Google Buzz.
Thus far, students' reactions to Buzz have been primarily negative.
"I set it on for a day, and I didn't like it," freshman Abha Gallewale said. "It was too much going on, and I liked it simpler. I like that they still have the option that you can keep it the old way."
Junior Kyle Sicus did just that. "I removed it from my account the second that I saw it was there," he said. "I needed to minimize distractions in my electronic life."
"I use Gmail all the time. [Buzz] came up on my Gmail, and I was like, ‘What is this?' One of my friends uses it a lot, and she shares really cool pictures," sophomore Emily Clayton said. "I don't see how it's different from other social media or why it's necessary. For older people who don't have Facebook, it might be useful."
Freshman Noam Shmueli feels that Buzz's similarity to Facebook is a detriment. "I just think they're just trying to do a Facebook thing, and it's just stupid," Shmueli said. "We're already on Facebook. Google is the best e-mail client, but we're not going to start buzzing or whatever."
In addition to the question of whether another social media tool is necessary, initial complaints about Buzz focused on potential privacy concerns of the new feature. Frequently e-mailed contacts were made public and visible to others — causing an uproar and forcing Google to quickly make changes to Buzz's settings.
"We quickly realized 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," Gmail and Google Buzz Product Manager Todd Jackson wrote in an entry on the official Gmail blog.
"It has you automatically follow people. Some are my professors and some of my dad's friends — people who I don't want in my social media," sophomore Rebecca Grunberg said. "I'm like, I don't want to follow your Buzz because it's anyone I've ever sent an e-mail to before. If you're following random people and they can see your contacts, you don't get to choose. It just showed up. They didn't tell us it would show up to people I e-mailed. I feel like on Facebook there's an expectation that people can see it, but on your e-mail, it's not like that."
Senior Lucía Flores had similar sentiments. "I have a Twitter and I use it frequently. I have no problem going on Twitter.com, so what is the purpose? It's all very distracting from my e-mail. Google Buzz came around three weeks after the start of the semester, and I was still trying to get into classes, so I was e-mailing professors. An English professor was automatically one of my followers, so it was awkward to see her in my contact list."
Clayton said that there is an understanding that social media tools will always decrease privacy.
"Things that give you more contact with people make you more vulnerable. I don't want to say there's deception," she said. "But Gmail is very simplified, and another thing that just ends up giving you more information is unhelpful."
Carter Rogers contributed reporting to this article.
