Buzzin..

There's a fair amount of buzz around at the moment, as Google announce another new feature. Buzz was only released yesterday, but there are already 2000 news articles about it when I checked a couple of minutes ago. There are those who love it, those who hate it, those who are sceptical, and those who like me are not sure what it could be used for. I've had a quick look as it's being rolled out gradually and I only got it this morning, and to me it seems at first to be a combination of some of the aspects of Facebook, and Twitter, with more use of location services. So, will it take off? Has it got a use in an education environment? Is it just another social networking service, and another inbox? I'm not sure, and am not sure what makes some services take off and other not. You would think that Google would have had a plan, but the last big product - Google Wave - seems to have gone very quiet. So, we'll wait and see. I'll give it a go, like I do most new things, and see what happens!

Edit: Something has been niggling me since I first posted this last night, and I've just realised what it is. The big difference between Buzz and other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, is that this is based on email - the others are separate. I'm not sure I want them linked. Something also worried me when I first went to look at my profile, which Google had created for me, was that it listed the people I email and chat with most as suggested followers - it was up to me to turn this off, or it would open for everyone to see. I've found a post this morning which puts it better than I could. I'm a big believer in people taking responsibility for their own privacy and security settings and understanding their own electronic footprint, but also believe that service providers have a responsibility to clearly set out the implications of their default settings. I'm not sure that this is the case in this instance. Am I being oversensitive?