If you read my previous post from last week you might be aware that I am not a big fan of Google’s new release, Google Buzz. Honestly, I feel that the release of the iPad is equally ridiculous. They have both created products for non-existing markets. The market Google Buzz operates in is already saturated, and Apple is offering a product that sits in-between two product categories (mobile and laptop) without any of the benefits! Both Google Buzz and the iPad are considered to be the two giants’ major releases for Q1 2010, and have therefore generated a lot of discussion. However, they have also receive a lot of critique (not just from me) among all praise.
I want to see which one is considered to be the bigger failure? Or am I wrong? Are they both products that will revolutionise respective industry? Please answer the poll, and if you consider me to be wrong, please tell me why in the comments field!
(This post and poll represents my own opinions and thoughts, and not those of Jam)
As all you Gmail users probably are aware, this morning Google launched a new leap into the Social Media space. They call it Google Buzz, and it works very similarly to Facebook’s “What’s on your mind?” sharing functionality:
You are able to share thoughts, links, photos, videos, RSS feeds etc. What sets it apart from Facebook, aside from one obvious thing, is that you are able to pull in content from your social networks or utilities such as Picasa, flickr, Google Reader and Twitter. This is a great functionality that facebook is lacking, and will probably do so due to equal lack of collaboration partners. All this is done straight through your Gmail account and is shared to your Gmail contacts. You are able to follow peoples’ Buzz feeds, or bring in random content from all your contacts.
Of course this has taken Twitter by storm (around 3,189 tweets over the last 6 minutes on ‘Google Buzz”) , and is the second highest ranking topic at the moment. However, even though it holds high share of buzz, it is not really received well:
According to me the biggest difference between Buzz and Facebook is also why I don’t think it will revolutionise the Social Media world: Gmail is not the forum where you want to share thoughts, party pictures or funny videos to everyone. My contacts in Gmail differ quite a lot from my friends in Facebook. Even Twitter gets around this problem due to a level of anonymity within the micro blog. As I have used my Gmail account for professional correspondence, I run the risk of sharing my content to unintended recipients.
Even though it could be considered a nice effort by Google to try to break into even another space, I don’t think they will succeed. I use my Gmail account for sending emails, for which it is great, but that’s what I will continue to do, nothing more. I’m not saying that Google hasn’t succeeded before in branching out, but this time they are moving in the wrong direction.
But an even more important question, what happened to Google Wave? I haven’t heard anything about it over the last months. This email system that was going to revolutionise the email world, did it flop?
As we saw last weekend, buzz isn’t enough to predict the winner – there’s something good going for each of the contestants, so which one is the best prediction?
Olly Murs has had the most buzz since 10 October and during the week leading up to this weekend’s final.
Source: Brandwatch
Stacey Solomon has the most fans on Facebook.
Source: Sum of Facebook pages with 100 or more fans
Joe is winning in the polls.
Forums on the Daily Mail, Digital Spy, Entertainment.stv.tv, PopSugar, StudentRoom and UnRealityTV forums all agree that Joe will win.
StudentRoom forums
Entertainment.stv.tv
DigitalSpy forums
So what’s the best predictor of who will win?
Buzz gave some indication of who would be voted off earlier on, but now that it’s down to the last three, buzz isn’t reliable enough. Stacey has a lot of Facebook fans, but it could just be her personality giving her fans. Polls are the closest to the actual vote, so I’m willing to bet that Joe will win this weekend.
After last night’s stunning X Factor performances, it’s time to make some predictions for tonight – based on what everyone is saying online.
(Click to see a larger image).
Over time, Danyl Johnson has had consistent buzz, with a higher than average number of mentions. Of the remaining five, Joe McElderry has had the least amount of buzz.
I’ll make a bold prediction: I think we’ll see Joe McElderry or Lloyd Daniels go home tonight on X Factor. If I’m wrong, I’ll try again.
Since we twittered about it yesterday I’ve been playing with the rather sinisterly titled We are hunted website which is utilising buzz to create a chart of the hottest new artists and songs. In their words they “aggregate social networks, forums, music blogs, Torrents, P2P Networks and Twitter to develop a daily chart of the 99 most popular songs online”. A great concept and really well excuted as the site looks really good and appears to have some science behind it, the geek in me has taken them on their offer to find out more about how it all works.
Their is certainly a great variety of music related sites and applications out there nowadays. For new and possibly unsigned acts their’s Myspace and Bebo, for finding music to fit your specific taste their is Last.fm, for on demand music their is Spotify and now to find out the music with the most buzz on a particular day, week or month then wearehaunted.com is the site to go to.
