Swatting Google Buzz

[silversliver]

Google Buzz got rolling a few days ago, but we have got off on the wrong foot, Buzz and I

Comments

[mamarabbit]

And I thought Facebook was far too public! I hope you've let Google have it, pretty much the way you've enumerated it here. How could they not have thought of all the ramifications????

[kiarda]

I'm a little bit confused-- you have to link a twitter acct to Buzz in order for it to show up, so if you want to post things under a pseudonym, you could just get a twitter acct and not link it to your gmail.

If you never actually "buzz", then what is there for an unwanted follower to get ahold of?

Also, I signed up willingly, and it let me pick which of my contacts I wanted to follow, and it looks like there is an option to block people. It does suck that their default option sounds stupidly broken, but I don't really see how being signed up for buzz and then never using it actually causes you any trouble.

(I'm not trying to be difficult, I really just don't get it)

[silversliver]

I think it's most irksome that I was signed up even though I indicated I did not want to participate. At least I thought that's what I said. Then to make it so, I still had to do an elaborate dance with the wind blowing the right way. It's like getting an insurance plan in the mail that subscribes you unless you make a series of phone calls to opt out (true story, but thankfully not mine).

I don't want it, I asked it not to include me, and I then had to spend my precious time to figure out how to turn it off and actually do so. This is the opposite of every other service I use. If a single click were enough to un-enroll, and if contacts were on a configuration page in sign-up rather than automatically chosen, I'd only be mildly miffed.

[kiarda]

Hope you saw the news today (many sources, you could just, um, google it), that Google is backpedaling, apologizing, and adding more straightforward ways to turn it off.

Not as good as spending two brain cells on it in the first place, but better than nothing.

[silversliver]

Thanks for the heads up. It looks like they've made some reasonable improvements.

[silversliver]

They're alright. I was cranky, headachy, and frustrated yesterday, and they were stomping and carrying on. It's not their fault being happy about the biggest holiday of the year.