Reply to "All That Buzz"

D wrote in her blog about Google's new edition to Gmail - Buzz.
This is my reply:
I think that the jury is still out on Google Buzz. I share D's worries about privacy and Google accumulating too much data on me. I don't, however, think that Google are doing a good job at managing the privacy setting. It's still an "opt-out" settings, and still - if you are not careful enough, people may have too much information about you. Add the fact that when used from a cellphone Buzz adds location data to your entries (buzzingas?) just makes it even scarier.

In addition, I find the level of noise (or maybe clutter would be a better term) to be too distracting at times. Buzz is now another thing that you have to check, after email, Facebook, Reader (and Twitter if you joined it). The fact that it is constantly inundating you with more data makes it harder to concentrate on the important stuff. Just think how hard it is to read an academic paper on the computer when there are so many distractions just around the Start button.

Finally, I think that Google is trying to kill off the competition, and get people more hooked on their services. Some of the competition they are aiming at is obvious - Twitter being the first, and perhaps Facebook and MySpace coming closely after. However, I think that since Buzz requires you to actually load the Gmail page (something I haven't done in years except for marking things "read") and read it, Buzz is a way of thwarting the risk of email clients syncing with Gmail and saving people from getting the well directed ads D mentioned. So, in the bigger scheme, Google is aiming at Microsoft's Outlook / Live Mail, Apple's mail client, and the open source Mozilla Thunderbird. I can understand the first two, but I think Thunderbird is a casualty of indirect fire and too much collateral damage. Google is supposed to "do no evil".