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I think one of the reasons Buzz has garnered so much back lash is because it really feels like this sudden intrusion. The other social sites bring at least as

I think one of the reasons Buzz has garnered so much back lash is because it really feels like this sudden intrusion. The other social sites bring at least as much noise, but you have to go and sign up for them. Once you are signed up for them, you have to grow your network over time, at a pace you can control. With Buzz, all you have to do is click "Okay" (which a lot of people do without even realizing), and suddenly you are hit with dozens of connections, and a lot of noise you had no idea you were asking for by clicking "okay". A lot of people who are annoyed now might have been fine with it if they had entered into it in a more organic fashion. I think it does promise to be a really convenient service. But the sheer suddenness and ubiquitousness of it almost guarantees a backlash.

lucifer 17y ago
> I think one of the reasons Buzz has garnered so much back lash is because it really feels like this sudden intrusion. The NSFW factor was also a surprise. Who knew some of the people I had exchange an email with had a proclivity for buzzing 'porn or art?' images ...
Goronmon 17y ago
But is the number of people annoyed by the automatic adding greater than the number of people who would ignore the service if they had to bother going through all their contacts to add people manually?
- rauljara 17y ago
  I think that Google (basically) knew what they were doing. They probably foresaw a certain amount of backlash, but felt that giving their new network a big head start was worth the risk.
jrp 17y ago
I was thrilled with that auto-setup feature. It was very easy to get everything up to speed. If I hadn't used social networks before I might have wanted a slow ramp-up, but I'm already comfortable with Facebook.
Semiapies 17y ago
I think the "backlash" is just tech-blog noise. I actually look in Buzz, and I see people using it to talk. They may lose interest in this venue in a few months or a year, or it may remain viable, but they aren't raging about it.
- somedaywings 17y ago
  This makes sense. As a user who expects to have control over the interface of my primary mail client, my first impulse was to hide the Buzz menu by dragging it into the "more" dropdown. But I don't think a lot of users expect to have control over websites they use -- Facebook changes its interface every other month. Most users probably just ignore most of the page and focus on the two or three features they actually use.
- alex_c 17y ago
  Of course, the people who are actually using it aren't the ones raging about it. That doesn't really prove anything.
  - swombat 17y ago
    Actually, I am using it, and I find the intrusion into my mailbox very irritating.
  - Semiapies 17y ago
    And vice versa. Knee-jerk tech-blog posts are no real barometer of how the Gmail-using public views Buzz.
rwhitman 17y ago
Exactly. I was actually really offended by this aspect of Buzz. Every other social network has had to gain user trust over time with years of community building and google just decides it can skip over that process by forcing it into gmail. Really rubbed me the wrong way, I switched it off 5 mins in

lucifer 17y ago

> I think one of the reasons Buzz has garnered so much back lash is because it really feels like this sudden intrusion. The NSFW factor was also a surprise. Who knew some of the people I had exchange an email with had a proclivity for buzzing 'porn or art?' images ...

Goronmon 17y ago

But is the number of people annoyed by the automatic adding greater than the number of people who would ignore the service if they had to bother going through all their contacts to add people manually?

rauljara 17y ago
I think that Google (basically) knew what they were doing. They probably foresaw a certain amount of backlash, but felt that giving their new network a big head start was worth the risk.

jrp 17y ago

I was thrilled with that auto-setup feature. It was very easy to get everything up to speed. If I hadn't used social networks before I might have wanted a slow ramp-up, but I'm already comfortable with Facebook.

Semiapies 17y ago

I think the "backlash" is just tech-blog noise. I actually look in Buzz, and I see people using it to talk. They may lose interest in this venue in a few months or a year, or it may remain viable, but they aren't raging about it.

somedaywings 17y ago
This makes sense. As a user who expects to have control over the interface of my primary mail client, my first impulse was to hide the Buzz menu by dragging it into the "more" dropdown. But I don't think a lot of users expect to have control over websites they use -- Facebook changes its interface every other month. Most users probably just ignore most of the page and focus on the two or three features they actually use.
alex_c 17y ago
Of course, the people who are actually using it aren't the ones raging about it. That doesn't really prove anything.
- swombat 17y ago
  Actually, I am using it, and I find the intrusion into my mailbox very irritating.
- Semiapies 17y ago
  And vice versa. Knee-jerk tech-blog posts are no real barometer of how the Gmail-using public views Buzz.

rwhitman 17y ago

Exactly. I was actually really offended by this aspect of Buzz. Every other social network has had to gain user trust over time with years of community building and google just decides it can skip over that process by forcing it into gmail. Really rubbed me the wrong way, I switched it off 5 mins in