almostwitty

So Google Buzz has launched, and I’ve had a quick play with it.

Unfortunately, it’s done the same thing as many recent Google product launches – it hasn’t brought anything new to the table, aside from the sheer gargantuan amount of data it stores about me. And the only reason it has so much data about me is because I’m pretty much wedded to Google, thanks to their still-superlative Gmail service (tabs instead of categories for email! It’s the future, I tell you!) and consequently, me adopting every other Google service there is, including their mobile phone system.

Which of course has its consequences. Within an hour of using Buzz, I found 10 people following me who were total strangers, who I’d never heard from before. This happens a lot more on Twitter (and to a certain extent on Facebook), but because those services don’t touch my email, it doesn’t seem so sinister. But with Buzz integrating with my email account, it does. There is a suggestion that these strangers found me via Google Profiles and that I ought to switch it off – but I’m quasi-reluctant to do that since otherwise, I could disappear off Google search results. (Then again, my name isn’t exactly my brand these days)

The huge flaw, of course, with integrating social networking so tightly with email, is that everyone’s email boxes are already groaning under the strain of spam, newsletters and the other ways people are trying to reach us via email. Adding another system to your email just adds to the risk of people declaring Inbox Surrender and leaving email alone entirely.

Ultimately, it’s hard to see why Google made another attempt into social networking, after the days of Orkut. They’ve built a new private members club opposite the most popular pub in town, spied upon everyone going into the pub to try and connect everyone, and then … just opened the front door – only letting in people who are members of the club. No special offers, no enticements, no new jukebox in the corner, nothing. There’s nothing in Buzz that isn’t already on other social networking sites – and of course, nothing that beats their main enemies, Facebook or Twitter. and ironically, they seem to be quite swamped – picking up blog posts and Twitter feeds from other areas of my digital life seems to take a day.

But like the famed Hotel California, once I’ve checked in, I can’t seem to leave…

Mirrored from almost witty.

There are many ways to run a competition on Facebook. Perhaps the way that the Orange Film Club did, isn’t the best one.

They posed a surprisingly difficult question (see a screengrab below the cut), but asked competition entrants to make their answers in the comments below. Being the mug I am, I did some fairly intense Googling, and thus became the first person to post the answer.

What did everyone else do? They quite sensibly copied my answer and thus within the hour you had 18 entries, who probably didn’t do the same intensive Googling that I did.

The kicker comes when they allocated the ticket – randomly, fair and square and within the stated terms of the competition – to someone else. When I’d done all the hard work! Bah!

It’s not just me with sour grapes – two random people who also entered have also said I should have gotten something!

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from almost witty.

While browsing through the various status updates on Facebook last night, I noticed that Jonathan Stephen Ross had started updating his Facebook status update, to the effect that he was going to spend a night in watching Sex And The City on DVD, and what "awesomeness" would ensue. Which, when you have newspaper headlines every day calling for your head on a plate, is probably just as well.

Cue at least 20 comments around the status update, basically all agreeing that this Jonathan Stephen Ross fellow was nothing more than a fake, because they'd all just read his new autobiography, and he'd never use words like awesomeness.

Thus forcing Jonathan to post a mobile pic on his Facebook proving that he was settling down to watch the shenaigans of four over-privileged but feisty and sexy girls in New York. (My favourite one is Miranda, for obvious reasons).

Meanwhile, over on Twitter, James Cridland has an interesting post about how one recommendation from Stephen Fry creates a wave of people all stampeding to buy a piece of iPhone software.

Ahhh the power of celebrity. Now if only I could find that audio clip from Stephen Fry lauding me as the future of broadcasting. (It was recorded some 13 years ago, to be fair)