Wednesday 24 November 2010

Buzz

I was there when MySpace kicked off.  Well maybe not quite as early as kick off, but soon after.  I think I still have my MySpace account.  It was where I started my blog.  Big mistake.  I remember the slog of cutting and pasting to move it across to Blogger.  I did this because somebody scared me by suggesting MySpace would run out of storage space and would delete old blog posts.  I’m pretty sure none of those posts I moved have tags.  Search Engine Optimisation be damned.

I was there for Facebook and abandoned MySpace quite quickly.  I never blogged on the Facebook platform because there was no need.  I could import my blog straight into the Facebook platform as a Note.

I was on Twitter before Stephen Fry.  I know.  Nobody was on Twitter before Stephen Fry, but I was.  March 07 if I remember correctly.  It took a while for me to see the benefit of Twitter, probably when Stephen Fry joined Twitter, which I think was when he was shooting his American series in the taxi cab.  And I found a way to annoy my friends on Facebook by copying across my Twitter feed into Facebook.

All of this Social Media adoption can be attributed to one man.  Thank you Geoff Lloyd.  My career has moved in its current direction thanks to my Social Media addiction.

I’ve tried other things but there hasn’t been enough of an advocate.  Geoff tried to persuade me that Bebo was worth a look but it wasn’t.

Recently Robert Wallis keeps persuading me that Google Buzz is worthy of my time.  It’s not doing it for me.  What am I missing?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

As you have a nice blog, why not connect it to buzz. As you have not that much comments on your blog, there is a good chance to get some buzz comments from your posts.
Maybe with a few more followers ... this could get a nice discussion thingy.

Denis Labelle said...

Have a look at my post "Welcome to Google Buzz... as simple as 1, 2, 3!" : http://goo.gl/E408W

You have to invest time. Engage and people will engage. You can't just post, sit and wait for comments. You have to actively reach out, pull (vs pushing), bring added value. You have to think "community" vs _"blogging"_ or even worst, _"Twittering"_ .

. Twitter - news (even if I don't believe at all in this platform)
. Facebook - Marketing
. Google Buzz - Community

Finally, IMHO, in the long term, working _for_ the Buzz vs merely "working the Buzz" will bring dividends. Good luck.

Unknown said...

Hi Ann,

As Siegfried and Denis said, get involved! Lots of cool people to get to know....

Random Geek said...

The news and conversations I get on Buzz are generally a higher quality than what I see on other networking sites. To harp on the point already made: the key to enjoying Buzz is really engaging in it. Look for interesting people and take part in the conversations. Google makes it really easy to dump content from other sources (blogs, twitter, Reader, etc), but people won't pay close attention if that is the limit of your involvement.

It can be a challenge to find worthwhile Buzz streams at first, but once you find a "hub" Buzzer like Denis Labelle or Thomas Morffew, you will find more and more interesting "spoke" Buzzers who follow and comment on the hubs.

If Buzz doesn't move you, that's okay! It's a big Internet.