OK. I admit it. I am rapidly descending down the rabbit hole of social media.  Not to point fingers, but if you are reading this, you are probably descending along with me.  And then right in the midst of our free-fall here comes Buzz. One more social media platform to soak up attention and precious hours is just what we all needed.  Yet there we were, well there I was, waiting for the much ballyhooed Buzz icon to pop on to my Gmail account.  Since Buzz launched I have been trying to figure out why.  I still don’t have a clue except for a gut feeling Buzz has the potential to take social media to an entirely new level of connectivity and enabling purposeful networks.  I was determined to be there at the start.

When it comes to new technology I am usually a second wave kinda guy.  While I have a strong inclination to play with all new tech toys I like to wait for a while after their launch so others can work out the initial bugs.  I patiently waited for the second release before jumping on an iPhone and Kindle.  I waited until Twitter was around for a while before wading in.  I never did the Facebook thing.  Initially I was prohibited because Facebook was my kid’s domain.  The deal was that I could have Twitter and Linked-in if I stayed away from their digital domain. Now they are older and the original deal no longer applies but Facebook seems too daunting a hill to climb at this point.  And then along comes Buzz offering me a similar ground floor opportunity.  I was not going to pass it up.

I will leave it to the geek squad to tear in to all of Buzz’s features and provide the user feedback necessary to improve the initial product.  I really like that Google releases its software in beta and manages through a cacophony of feedback to constantly improve the platform.  Buzz is no exception.  Everyone is all up in arms about the way Buzz was released with a ready made set of connections based on email traffic. Google should have launched with an opt-in approach to connecting users based on private Gmail traffic.  They should have known better but the outrage voiced in blogs and the twitterverse is overdone.  Google quickly changed the privacy setting options and will continue to do so based on user input.  I happen to like that Buzz is integrated with my Gmail account and see huge upside to integrating contacts, email, and a flexible social media platform. We should all improve every day.  Life is a beta.

A question I suspect many of us have is how to adapt posting behavior across Twitter and Buzz. I think both platforms have a place and value.  I started out enabling a feed from Twitter to Buzz so my tweets appeared in the Buzz stream.  I have now disconnected the feed. The integration between the two is terrible.  There is a very annoying lag before they appear and the clutter of tweets distracts from viewing native Buzz content.  I will continue to post to both platforms trying to differentiate the content based on the characteristics of each audience and platform.  It will be an ongoing experiment to find the right balance.

As a dinosaur the only way for me to learn about social media is to dive right in.  The curve is steep but rewarding.  It is exciting to be a participant in the seismic shift away from the old models of mass marketing and communication. The days of the big campaign developed behind closed doors followed by a grand unveiling comprised of orchestrated media placements and road show whistle-stops are behind us.  Now the message is developed and honed every day.  You don’t need an army of specialists to tell you what the message is.  You just need to put your genuine ideas out in public every day where a community of interest can provide you with immediate feedback, help you to improve, and share your ideas with their networks if they like them. No intermediaries required.  Being genuine is valued above all else.

No need to assign the task of sharing your perspective, idea, or message to a third party.  Share them yourself.