Holy crap, it’s been exactly 100 days since my last post. Wowzer. Things have been busy, which is good and bad I guess. So real quick here, I wanted to give my perspective on Google Buzz, and why I like it from a recruitment perspective.

Social media, blah blah blah. Sick of hearing about it, but it’s not going away. To me, social media is about building relationships and community, simple. I use Twitter, but I was stupid and wasn’t as picky as I should’ve been initially about who I follow. And I haven’t been as diligent about setting up lists and weeding out the stuff I don’t want, or the people I don’t at least know a little (again, need time to do that). There’s still some good stuff out there, but my feed is overloaded with a lot of junk.

This is where Buzz comes in. I follow people on Buzz I really want to keep up with on Twitter or in my Google Reader (because you tie your Twitter account and Reader into Buzz). You’re not limited to 140 characters and you look at those selected tweets whenever you want, on your time, without needing Twitter lists or feeds or whatever. Check out my Gmail account below. Buzz is just another part of your inbox, and tells you how much activity is in your “Buzz”. If you get a response on a “Buzz” that is yours or that you commented on, you’ll get an email notification. Obviously, the caveat here is that you need a Gmail account, which not everyone has. But most people do, especially in IT.

As you can see from the 2nd screenshot below, and as mentioned above, you can connect up to 6 sites (at this time). Picasa, Google Reader, Twitter, Flickr, your Google chat status, etc. And you can see (from my buddy Lyle’s recent Buzz) the types of conversations you can have. It’s much more user friendly than Twitter, and a bit more collaborative.

Personally, I’m in Gmail quite a bit, so it’s right there without having to go to another app. As I’ve stated, time is short these days, and as you can see with some of the screenshots, I have so many applications popping up stuff, how do I keep track of everything? If they figure out how to really integrate Twitter (so tweets can come from Buzz or Gmail or whatever), and add Facebook and LinkedIn functionality, I’ll never leave Gmail. Anyways, I’m a rookie to Buzz, but I’m excited to see what else they come up with. So far, I like it a lot and feel I’ve had some really good conversations with some of my fellow Buzzers.

Tags: Google Buzz, Recruiting, social media, twitter

This entry was posted by Ehren Seim on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Recruiting, Social media/networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.