tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17469573.post1328177875888988249..comments2023-08-08T09:53:14.113-02:00Comments on Platform Wars: Composinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01739889615635395138noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17469573.post-4357422349388663352010-02-11T01:51:41.612-02:002010-02-11T01:51:41.612-02:00I'm not very enthusiastic about Google Buzz. ...I'm not very enthusiastic about Google Buzz. I feel okay sharing my email and choosing which email address to give out where, but I don't feel comfortable giving out other people's email addresses. <br /><br />I often go back to your 2007 piece on <a href="http://blahsploitation.blogspot.com/2007/10/hmmmm.html" rel="nofollow">widgets and social networks</a> because you emphasize the importance of social convention. I can get in touch with my Facebook friends several different ways, but probably only have email addresses for 20% of my connections there.<br /><br />Right now I don't open about 95% of my email at Gmail. Most of them are notifications of one sort or another. I don't go to Gmail to keep track of them, I simply watch a Gmail widget I have at Netvibes. What's interesting is the Buzz posts in my inbox don't show up in the widget.<br /><br />I also follow my FB status updates and Twitter updates via a widget at Netvibes. I like Netvibes and don't know how many others use it. iGoogle can do the same, but they were slow to get widgets--they insist on calling them gadgets--for Facebook and Flickr. I notice that Buzz posts in my Gmail do show up in the Gmail widget on iGoogle.<br /><br />I'm babbling on, but trying to take in your footnote about Google making a direct replacement for Outlook. <br /><br />Google has some great products, but there are lots of great products that other companies make that people use. My sense of it is that some attention to iGoogle would bring some of their services together with services from other companies. <br /><br />To a certain extent the attention to widgets online is related to Google's foray into mobile phones. They need to get a handle on assuring some quality in their widgets and phone apps. i-Google has too many widgets that don't work, so I don't use it. <br /><br />I still think Google Wave is something valuable. I have a notifier installed somebody wrote. Why is that something Google didn't include as a matter of course. And why is there no Google Wave widget?<br /><br />Whats really necessary is for Google to bring their products together and to make sure they work. The idea seems to be to make the Gmail inbox the Google portal so we'll see the ad at the top of the page. The way the Gmail inbox is set up now doesn't seem the best for a portal, something along the lines of an i-Google page would seem to me to work better.John Powershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17126222842766191343noreply@blogger.com