Feb 12 2010
The Buzz on Buzz
So, Google is going after Twitter and Facebook it seems with Buzz. Buzz could be an interesting platform, but here are 4 key reasons why it’s probably not going to take off just yet:
- Google doesn’t get user experience.
- People are already invested in Twitter and Facebook
- APIs Matter
- Poorly Thought Out Defaults
Quantitative vs. Qualitative
Google is a data driven company. How could they not be? They’re primarily a search engine; everything they do to make money revolves around measuring aspects of how people interact with various parts of the Internet. Numbers can be illuminating but they’re also cold, unfeeling things. They can tell you how many pages link to some other page, or how often people click on one ad versus another, but they can’t tell you why some people love their iPods and don’t by Zunes.
What Google doesn’t do at all well is user experience (UX), and it’s not because they’re not filled to the brim with scarily smart people, it’s because a good user experience requires qualitative nuance; it takes tons of time and patience and, most importantly it takes living with ambiguity and constantly re-imaginging and re-adjusting your product in the face of changing tastes. From Googles perspective, one would have answer the question “How do you objectively measure good user experience?” Well, unfortunately for Google, You can’t: all qualitative things are subjective. Even user testing only tells you what your testers like. To mangle a metaphor, the proof of the pudding is in the large-scale use of the product…
The only true measure of a good user experience is the voice of the marketplace. And, so far, Google has shown no interest in investing in the squishy, touchy-feely world of UX, as is evidenced by all the very spartan aspects of their apps: Gmail, Gdocs, Google Spreadsheet … all very minimalist. All very functional, but boring as hell.. (Their search page is an exception to this rule – the lack of any substantive UX on this page clarifies its function – the brevity IS the User Experience – its pretty obvious what you’re supposed to do in the search box on google.com.)
I’d Rather Fight Than Switch…
Another thing that’s going to slow Google from gaining fast traction with Buzz is the fact they’re very late to the party. Twitter has been around since 2007, and FaceBook since ~2004, and for Facebook at least they have some 400,000,000 users around the world who have uploaded 10s of billions of pictures, played untold trillion games of Mafia Wars, Farmville, and Scrabble™, and have super-poked each other until their virtual bruises have virtual bruises.
Funny thing about people is they get set in their ways and you really have to offer them a compelling reason (read: user experience) to get them to leave something they know for some thing new. In the words of that old Tarrington cigarette’s ad “I’d rather fight than switch…”
The API’s the Thing
Next, there’s the issue of APIs – this ties in to both user experience and emotional/time investment people have in Twitter and FaceBook; so far Google has not released a Twitter compatible API for Buzz. The latest on this as reported by Dave Winer seems to be that Google is claiming the Twitter API spec isn’t “Open.” Hmmm… there are a lot of Twitter clones out there from Laconi.ca and Yammer to Present.ly – I haven’t heard tell of Twitter suing anyone for implementing a Twitter-compatible API
The API thing plays into the point above about people being already invested in these platforms and accessing those platforms with tools they like. By forcing developers to create new tools just for use with Buzz, Google is forcing both the developers and regular users to make a choice between things they like and access to Buzz. That’s not going to work out so well, I think.
From a development perspective, it’s also a pain in the tail to support multiple protocols/APIs; eventually someone will get smart and abstract Buzz and Twitter (and whatever else comes down the micro-blogging pike) into a single facade, but that only works well if the underlying semantics and feature-set are roughly aligned, but for now there are going to have to be a mess of new clients and slap-dash shoe-horning of Buzz APIs into existing clients.
However even all these points are not as bad as the final thing that’s working against Buzz…
Choosing. Bad. Defaults.
When you write any application or develop any platform one of the hardest things to do is imagine what the best starting settings, or “defaults” are for the users of your application/platform. You always want to err on the side of caution, not turning on every option, rather giving your user some safe settings that show what you can do with your system without endangering your user (perhaps by damaging their work or opening up their data to prying eyes) or overwhelming them with features they’re not ready for or may never, ever have a need for. In the case of Buzz, Google really didn’t think about the implications of their “defaults” for Buzz very thoroughly if they did so at all…
Why do I say this? Well, when Google activated Buzz they opt-ed in everyone’s gmail account, and had Buzz auto-follow just about everyone you communicate with, then did the inverse “follows” for everyone you follow… At first blush this sounds innocuous, but what about people who didn’t want their bosses, or boyfriends to know their entire social network? What about women who are trying to avoid abusive spouses or boyfriends? How about human rights activists? How about whistleblowers? Or, anyone else whose safety, security or work will be compromised by having their communications network exposed for no good reason and without their permission.? Clearly Google didn’t consider what the “good” defaults for Buzz would be before turning it on.
Think this last bit is over the top? Not for a lot of people who have a expressed their outrage at Google’s lack of in-depth thinking here. Google itself is pretty much reeling from the blowback and trying to figure out how to undo the obvious PR and goodwill nightmare by potentially separating Buzz from GMail and making Buzz opt-in only, but the damage is already done, the horse is out of the barn, etc.
Buzz may yet be a worthy addition to the whole social network arena, but Google first has to gain its user’s trust back, then it has to understand that the users are in control, from choosing the tools they like because he APIs are compatibe (and again, Google needs to make it easier to switch than fight…), and then experience has to be one that is compelling enough to make people want to switch.
No responses yet