4 ms·

> It was being used just as a republishing tool So, like Google Plus. Except that an "open" publishing tool is at least more useful than an entirely proprieta

> It was being used just as a republishing tool So, like Google Plus. Except that an "open" publishing tool is at least more useful than an entirely proprietary one! Let's face it, Google dropped the ball here.

nl 8y ago
No. Google Plus never had an API for incoming content. Buzz allowed one-click connection to Twitter. Great idea, but people would use it to publish straight from Twitter, and wouldn't engage on the Buzz platform. This was a terrible experience - you'd miss the conversational aspect of Twitter, and be ignored if you tried to have conversations on Buzz. Google dropped the ball here. Maybe, but it isn't clear to me what they should have done differently.
- Kye 8y ago
  >> "Buzz allowed one-click connection to Twitter. Great idea, but people would use it to publish straight from Twitter, and wouldn't engage on the Buzz platform." This almost became a problem on Mastodon with Twitter crossposters. Enough people pushed back hard to keep them from taking over timelines. People still use them, but they generally engage on both sides now.
- 0815test 8y ago
  > you'd miss the conversational aspect of Twitter, and be ignored if you tried to have conversations on Buzz. This comes with the territory of having a fledging social network - it's not "terrible" if it's good enough for users. You grow from there by encouraging some niche communities to congregate using your system, that's how true "engagement" can start. Even Facebook itself grew from a very small community, namely students at a particular college, then college students more generally.
  - nl 8y ago
    Yes, and indeed they tried this (especially on Plus, around photography). The problem was that the product was working as designed - it was the importing of external feed that was both the key feature and the problem. It might have worked if two-way-comment feeds were a thing. But there is no reason why Twitter would want to implement that.
eitland 8y ago
Buzz had some horrible privacy problems and was too smart for its own good if I remember correctly.
- nl 8y ago
  The Buzz privacy problem were almost exclusively at launch, the way they seeded the network. Not sure what "too smart for its own good" means exactly. It was a pretty vanilla feed, with no fancy features.
  - eitland 8y ago
    > Not sure what "too smart for its own good" means exactly. It was a pretty vanilla feed, with no fancy features. It was a reference to how they seeded the network by inferring contacts.

nl 8y ago

No. Google Plus never had an API for incoming content. Buzz allowed one-click connection to Twitter. Great idea, but people would use it to publish straight from Twitter, and wouldn't engage on the Buzz platform. This was a terrible experience - you'd miss the conversational aspect of Twitter, and be ignored if you tried to have conversations on Buzz. Google dropped the ball here. Maybe, but it isn't clear to me what they should have done differently.

Kye 8y ago
>> "Buzz allowed one-click connection to Twitter. Great idea, but people would use it to publish straight from Twitter, and wouldn't engage on the Buzz platform." This almost became a problem on Mastodon with Twitter crossposters. Enough people pushed back hard to keep them from taking over timelines. People still use them, but they generally engage on both sides now.
0815test 8y ago
> you'd miss the conversational aspect of Twitter, and be ignored if you tried to have conversations on Buzz. This comes with the territory of having a fledging social network - it's not "terrible" if it's good enough for users. You grow from there by encouraging some niche communities to congregate using your system, that's how true "engagement" can start. Even Facebook itself grew from a very small community, namely students at a particular college, then college students more generally.
- nl 8y ago
  Yes, and indeed they tried this (especially on Plus, around photography). The problem was that the product was working as designed - it was the importing of external feed that was both the key feature and the problem. It might have worked if two-way-comment feeds were a thing. But there is no reason why Twitter would want to implement that.

eitland 8y ago

Buzz had some horrible privacy problems and was too smart for its own good if I remember correctly.

nl 8y ago
The Buzz privacy problem were almost exclusively at launch, the way they seeded the network. Not sure what "too smart for its own good" means exactly. It was a pretty vanilla feed, with no fancy features.
- eitland 8y ago
  > Not sure what "too smart for its own good" means exactly. It was a pretty vanilla feed, with no fancy features. It was a reference to how they seeded the network by inferring contacts.