CommuniKate: Social Media Musings – KateDickman.com CommuniKATE: Social Media & Other Musings

Google Buzz Doesn’t Have to Be a Redundant Stream of Info

Read an article today from one of my favorite blogs on the web - ReadWriteWeb.com.  They have decided to use Buzz a bit differently than the rest and it has finally brought that big ol' light bulb back into my head.  Now I sit here realizing what the potential of Buzz is as another social avenue.  While first using Buzz, I was a bit annoyed as I followed people only to see regurgitated info (tweets, blog posts etc.) that could be viewed on all the other sites I connect with them on. It just felt like one big redundant way to gather and broadcast content.   However, RWW wrote the following about their hopes in using the tool:

..."We won't be cluttering up our own Buzz stream with bot-like aggregations and self-promotion. As we've said, if you want to get RWW news, there are many other platforms well-suited to that.  We're really looking forward to getting to you know as individuals in a more casual online environment.

What if we were to cut out all of the self-promotion and all of the links and truly use it to ask questions of one another? Discuss Issues?  Ones that won't just be limited to a 140 @ reply.  These could be questions and discussions that can truly be talked about with a wide variety of people all at once?

One could argue that Facebook can service this need but again, Facebook also consists of the clutter of applications, multimedia, links and thensome.  Perhaps Buzz could be in between for what is defined as a chatroom/forum/blog. People will not feel compelled to write lengthy blog posts in order to evoke response.  Perhaps brands could use it to gather authentic information and input from their customers all in one place without having to ask on their Facebook fan pages where fan comments/company announcements and more are clustered together.

I had left Buzz up and running just in case I finally figured out a use.  If more people were to consider this approach, we may be onto something.  I would say an occasional link posted on an article/topic would be sufficient providing it was not something necessarily tweeted and blogged about on their other social accounts.  While it may be a pain to keep up with yet another site, it may be beneficial as we can lessen our interactions on other sites to gain the same insight/feedback we require as professionals, individuals and companies on a weekly basis.  What do you think?