Google announced Buzz yesterday and has started rolling it out to its users. This morning when I logged into my gmail account it notified me of this and everyone who was following me, along with who I am following.
If you know nothing about it, check out the Google link above and this PC World article. They both give a quick bit of info about the service.
I played with it for a few minutes, basically adding a few more follows, turning off the sharing of my information. Right now, if I comment all anyone sees is my name, however you can change this to include a plethora of information, such as how many people you follow, as well as are followed by, location, etc, etc. I don’t have Facebook; I don’t want it. I have a MySpace from days of yore, but I don’t really use it. LinkedIn I use because it is a nice professional medium (though I have gotten the occasional connection request from people who are trying to grow their networks by just adding random people) and I think of it as a good resume and networking tool (that I thankfully haven’t needed to use). I have a twitter (as you have probably seen on the blog).
In general, I don’t want to share my information with others. People I know and care to chat with know how to contact/chat with me. Maybe I’m just getting all crotchety in my old age, but I don’t feel the need to make myself exceptionally accessible to others. I keep hearing that I have a really basic phone for a techie. I always tell people that I like having a basic phone; it gets great battery life, and I don’t want to be more accessible when I’m away from my computer. I have an iPod Touch and it is starting to have issues (audio keeps cutting out intermittently), and rather than replace it I am considering an iPhone, but… I don’t know if I would use it enough to justify the expensive data plan that goes along with it. Yeah, there are times when that thing would really help (so that I don’t call Jon to verify/for directions — speaking of which thanks for putting up with that), but in general I don’t need it 24/7. I have a GPS that I rarely use. I have a Kindle. Worst case scenario, I could pull up Google Maps on that, however the iPhone would obviously be faster.
Google Buzz seems like another step toward the Googlezon, though not one I’m overly excited about.
What about y’all? Do you have Google Buzz? If so, do you like it?