#BIG

from http://BennerNotes.com

I initially liked the premise of Google Buzz, but a few weeks after its creation, the search engine’s attempt at social content sharing has turned out to be an unmitigated debacle, fraught with incensed Gmail users and class action lawsuits.

A part of me wants to say, “But THIS IS GOOGLE, this has to be good.” But the internet giant is not above reproach.

While people are not using Buzz yet, still I wonder if we will come around. When Facebook launched the News Feed in 2006, the reaction from many users was extremely negative.

If you are relatively new to Facebook, the initial home page on Facebook showed you your profile picture and a navigation menu that you could use to get around your profile. It also showed birthdays and gave you notifications if there were any messages. That was it. Overnight, this highly simplified layout was changed to what we now know as the News Feed. Your profile updates were put on the front page of people with whom you were friends. It came out of nowhere. Users argued that it seemed like a stalking tool.

Ultimately, people learned to accept News Feed and now it is simply part of Facebook. It’s not odd, it’s just there (and was actually awarded a patent at the end of last month). Could Buzz have a similarly positive fate? More and more I am leaning towards, “No.”

A key difference is that News Feed took information that you had already chosen to share on Facebook and simply moved it to the front page. And it was with people who were already your Facebook friends. Just because you communicate with someone in email does not mean you are really acquainted with that person.

What Buzz did was far more intrusive. It took content from various areas of your Google identity (e.g. the list of contacts on Google that you were following on Buzz) and made it public. With all of the negative feedback and bad press for Buzz, many people have deactivated the application all together. Those who remain on Buzz are unsure of what to do with it. It is too existential. Without a clear purpose, it is worthless. The only updates I am seeing on Buzz are status updates from people who have linked Buzz to Twitter (but even that isn’t truly an intentional update intended for Buzz).

In analyzing the application, during the creation and implementation of Buzz, Google made an error somewhere along the line in terms of their focus groups and the ways in which they gauged public response. I don’t know if part of this is the result of test groups of individuals who are more tech savvy and possibly more likely to enjoy such a feature, or what exactly Google did. In either case, one thing is clear; Google made a huge miscalculation.

This is clear because within the opening days of Buzz’s implementation, there was a public backlash with Google overhauling their privacy settings and the abilities by which a person can change his or her privacy settings. I argue that this would not have happened had Google had any idea of what the reaction to Buzz would be. When they realized their mistake, they had to rush to make changes.

I was initially intrigued as I thought Buzz could succeed on convenience. For many of us on Gmail, we login as often – or more often – than we do to Facebook, and the fact that Buzz, by default, set you up to follow people with whom you already have interaction through email seemed to have potential to allow for a more intimate social networking experience.

While Facebook is broad, and where you have lots of connections, Buzz seemed to allow easier access for you to follow a smaller group of people (many of whom you would presumably be more closely connected to).

In reality, a Google social content sharing service makes a lot of sense, but, for many, they did not appreciate Google automatically enrolling them in Buzz and making information which they did not necessarily want to be public, public. And as I have already alluded, there are multiple class action lawsuits for Buzz, while the application remains in your Gmail, going unused. What is the point of? I argue that Google should scrap the entire project, regroup, and give content sharing another try.

(like what you’ve read? tell me what you think at benner.joshua@gmail.com or follow me at http://twitter.com/bennernotes)

Hi fans of verybigideas!

I am excited about the first test drive of the #big social network.  Feel free to sign up, but many changes are going to be coming.  This is going to be a great tool for entrepreneurs to meet each other and share ideas.

Be patient as I make some cosmetic changes.  (I was bummed to loose that other theme) In the meantime, enjoy great content!

#big

Continuing on our streak of guest writers, Scott K and I have some ideas to make twitter better.  I have not decided if these are big enough to be a business, but maybe they could be added to existing twitter extensions to make the service better.  I have spent some time emailing twitter and asking for my bookmark idea, but they must not check email often because I have not heard back. . . jerks ahahaha. . . anyways

Bookmarks -Anthony:

I have been spamming twitter forever telling them that I need a bookmark in my tweet stream.  Especially the one on my phone.  I like to be up to date on all of my friends latest activities. . .  It is so annoying when you are starting at the most recent tweet (the one I want to read first) then going down the list and not knowing where to stop.  Give me a bookmark that stops me at my last read tweet.  Honestly, this would take 2 seconds twitter.  All you would have to do is store the tweetid in a hidden row of the profile database.  (any programmer should understand that)

Spoilers – Scott K:

If I’m watching a live event, like for instance, the USA vs. Canada Hockey game, but I’m about 15 minutes or even 5 hours behind Live TV, I’d like to restrict the twitter view to a particular time-frame to avoid spoilers but still checkout to see what people are saying about the game at the point in time I am watching it. This same functionality could be useful to ‘rewind’ twitter back to an earlier time-frame rather than repeatedly clicking show ‘more’ at the bottom of twitter to show older content.

Twitter is notorious for slow iteration and rolling out new products.  Did you hear Facebook just patented the news feed. Twitter will add a little feature every once in a while.  Like, how about when Twitter added lists. . . remember that?  They should have started with lists, and lists should have been called groups.  Everyone knows that lots of good modifications and new features keep people coming back, get you in the news, and get you new users. In my opinion, twitter is slow to iterate. . . But hey, I still use it daily, so they must be doing something right.

Now would be a good time to pitch. . . follow me on twitter.

Thanks Scott for your help with todays article!  Scott has tons of new ideas and I want to get this guy writing regularly for VBI.  Keep them coming man!

#big

Small Business Consultant, Karen Southhall Watts is a guest writer at verybigideas.com You can find out more about Karen Here:

The first question we tackle is:  Should you create your own website?

Karen

This is one of the questions that almost always pops up in the initial stages of working with an entrepreneur. Recently I visited with a few business owners and this issue caught my attention again. Here are the most common reasons people choose to go the “homemade” website route and some of the unintended consequences:

1.       A friend or family member offers (or is volunteered) to do the website—there are two common problems here. First since they are not being paid freebie web designers don’t put your site and your needs on the top of their priority list. This means you can end up with serious time lag issues. I recently met with someone who was two years into the process of having a family member do their site—it’s still not up. Secondly, just because someone “knows about web design” doesn’t mean they are qualified to build and help you maintain a website. This is especially true if you need a fully functioning e-commerce site.

2.       Do-it-yourself and template services—they are everywhere and often cheap. When you look at this option it is essential to know what kind of image you are trying to portray. These services are fast and easy to use but don’t necessarily create original looking or super functional sites. Sometimes no website at all is better that something that is obviously a template and does not match your brand or image.

3.       Tech savvy and marketing know-how do not always go hand in hand—building a website is a part of your overall marketing strategy and not just an exercise in computer skills. Your designer (or you) should understand that it is not always advisable to use every techie trick in the box…you don’t need to use every animation, widget and plug-in known to man. You should also understand that things like “under construction”, “coming soon” and other indicators that you are not business ready may seem acceptable to your programmer but your customers think otherwise.

Anthony

If you are as stubborn as I am, and you have no budget like I do, then the answer is yes, you should create your own.  I agree with Karen on all points.  It helps to know someone who has done it, and the cheap services often look bad.  Finally, simple is often better and less is often more.

Do not get all excited about it and tell everyone you know, until the final page is ready.  Check and double check everything, and remember to back up often.  Take your time and don’t be in a hurry and you will make a quality page.   In light of my answer, I am going to give you a quick how to should you choose to do it yourself.

1. godaddy.com I do all of my domain purchasing and hosting through them.  I am able to pretty much host as many websites as I want for $7 each month.  Go and find a domain that works for you.  godaddy does have a lot to look at (there is text all over the place)  A standard   .com shouldn’t cost you more than 10 bucks, get creative with your naming and don’t worry about all the special offers from godaddy for now.  The only other thing you will need to buy is hosting.  Hosting is the virtual computer that keeps your webpage up and running $5-7 a month.  Buying the domain is just the name of your page $10 one time.

2.  Wordpress.org Wordpress is a blogging platform, but it works great for static pages where information doesn’t change often as well.  There are thousands of themes that will give you a differentiated page.  I always recommend lighter colors because they seem more legit.  Facebook, Twitter, New York Times. . . All the big pages have white backgrounds.  Spend 3-4 days figuring out wordpress.  If you need help, godaddy customer service is great.  If you are an entrepreneur you need to be comfortable getting on the phone and asking lots of questions anyways.  It’s good practice

3. extend If you go the wordpress route there are thousands of plugins and themes.  You can add all kinds of fancy buttons, applications, games, anything…  The other day I stumbled across buddypress which lets me set up my own social network on top of wordpress!  Imagine, I can have a social network for brainstorming entrepreneurs (coming soon to verybigideas!) Don’t go crazy and spend time testing and reading review before you use them.

4. facebook If you don’t have the time or patience, you can set up a facebook fanpage in about 5 minutes.  Again, there are tons of applications that can be distracting or useful.  The social network aspect is awesome. Check out what your competitors do and copy if necessary.  As your business grows, you can always link your fanpage to your webpage when you can afford to have someone to do it for you.

The whole process of setting up your own page, should you choose the wordpress route should take 5-7 days.  Spread it out, take your time, and if you get stuck first call godaddy, then send me a twitter DM @verybigideas.  I will walk you through it.

#big

So, I am taking a bit of a step back from the daily posting to VBI.   It is just too consuming.  Instead keep coming back once a week for the brainstorm business show.   More of a schedule will develop soon.  As I mentioned in the video, if guest bloggers want to write for me one day each week, send me an email with a sample of your writing and why you would be good at participating.  Oh and if you watch, you can learn the special secret announcement coming to VBI in the future!

#big