A few days ago Google released their new communication platform, Buzz to the world. It’s an odd kinda contraption, a pinch of Facebook with a dash of Twitter and some fancy location aware features all mixed up in a big bowl of Gmail.
But just how could Google’s new service impact our daily lives?
On paper it’s not all that exciting, a rebake of what we all ready have. It could easily be seen as just another useless social network developed solely to jump on the popularist bandwagon, I mean, why should I switch from Twitter to this? What makes it so special? Just how will I get Facebook contacts and Twitter followers to switch? After all a social network is worthles with no people to socialise with, Google’s other project, Wave is a fine example of this problem.
The thing is, all this aside I’m really excited about Buzz. Not so long ago I had an idea of what Twitter could become. The idea was a much greater focus on location awareness, making it a dominant feature. I wanted to use Twitter to meet and discuss local issues with local people, this became a greater desire since moving to London too! I had grand ideas of people forming discussion groups around local issues, letting councillors, police and other authorities know what local issues people are really interested in, the issues no one bothers to report, the low level, but incredibly important stuff day to day.
Imagine people getting together to develop an idea or project in the local area. Moving power back to people on a local level.
This kind of thinking is what excites me most about Buzz, sure there’s gonna be a ton of crap on there, spam and chatty noise. But the ability to act as a catalyst to local discussion is what I find really fascinating. In a time of decreased social cohesion and community, when people are beginning to grow up spending more time on computers than socialising in real life, something which bridges the gap is invaluable!
Buzz’s focus is on nearby discussion, this is what in my mind is the killer feature which separates it from the rest, it allows for easy local discovery of people in a way that hasn’t been possible before.
Then to cap it off there’s the potential to add a massive amount of value using Google’s other new product, Wave. Wave is an online communication system designed to replace email, it’s aimed at making collaboration easier and removes many of the difficulties associated with email communication.
Imagine starting a discussion with a group of local people, trying to setup a community vegetable garden or something similar, just throwing ideas back and forth with Buzz. Then, you realise there’s potential in the idea, so you want to involve more local people, this is where Wave could help. Imagine moving the Buzz over to a wave with a single click, you could send a link to local business’, residents committees, members of the local authority and maybe the local allotment group. From here the ability for a group of local people to self manage and organise grows massively. This kind of direct action and communication is where I believe these services are aimed. Sure, people could go along to a monthly residents association and put an idea forward, but being able to discuss in realtime, no matter where you are and when is the important factor and the potential for social change, if harnessed in this way is massive.
Admitently the service will be exploited by spammers and flooded by inane comments about Tv celebs, but dreaming can become reality too!
