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Privacy update for Google Buzz – removing auto-follow

April 6, 2010 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

Google has rolled out updates to Google Buzz in the wake of privacy concerns, including replacing auto-following with suggestions for people to follow. And although the change was actually made back in February, an update today will make this change apparent to anyone who signed up before February 13th.

Aside from the fact that there has been a sizeable user backlash on the privacy problems initially created by Google Buzz, and potentially the service has failed to take off, Google also has another major privacy issue. Google Buzz is under investigation by the U.S FTC (Federal Trade Commission).

One example of the reason is that White House Deputy CTO Andrew McLaughlin, a former Google employee, recently found his Google Buzz account revealed many of his Gmail accounts publicly, including a number of Google lobbyists or lawyers. His account has now been deleted after a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request.

There’s also a new Youtube channel for Google to share tips and tricks on using Google Buzz.

And new settings in your Googlemail preferences mean that you can now control which Buzz items arrive via email in future, to decide between comments on your posts, comments on posts after you’ve contributed, and comments on posts after you’ve been @replied on them. The promised ‘mute’ button hasn’t quite arrived yet, but the problem with Buzz is that it needs to keep changing incredibly quickly to adapt, and it needs to work across 50+ Gmail languages from the start without causing problems with latency or downtime.

Every other social network started small and then grew exponentially – Twitter, Facebook, Myspace etc. In the case of Google Buzz, it attempted to get a headstart by launching to millions and then adapting – something which might prove akin to trying to change natural evolution.

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Filed Under: Google Buzz Tagged With: buzz, buzz youtube channel, controls, gmail, google, mclaughlin, privacy, settings

Will customer service come to social media?

January 12, 2010 By Dan Thornton 6 Comments

Despite the constant call for companies to engage in customer service via social media, it’s rare anyone points out that the people running the social platforms are generally a bit rubbish at servicing customers themselves…

John Batelle writes about the challenge Google faces with the Nexus One – in that it’s not a company geared for customer service. Something that’s not a surprise if you’re a user of Feedburner for example.

I’m fortunate enough to have been introduced to a couple of very wonderful people at both Facebook and Twitter, which means I can get a bit more help than most people. But not only has that been a relatively recent development, but those contacts are only for my work activity (And I’m afraid I won’t be sharing their details, as I suspect they’d be bombarded with emails and probably never speak to me again.)

For my personal accounts I use the same customer service routes as everyone else – and like everyone else, I face a load of impersonal FAQs, contact forms, and seemingly circular links to try and get an answer from anyone to solve my problems…

And yet at the same time, I’m joining everyone else in proclaiming how useful social networks are in solving customer service issues and engaging with people to get them responses.

The only reason that the networks escape a lot of criticism appears to be either down to the fact we’re still sympathetic to the plucky little startups they once were, we’re worried about getting deleted if we complain, or we’re all waiting for the market to evolve to the point where social network customer service is as important to us as changes to the news stream or the way we Retweet.

Until then, we’ll have to live with the fact we’re trying to become open and transparent on networks which do their best to avoid hearing from us…

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Filed Under: customer service, social networks Tagged With: complaints, contact, customer relationship management, customer service, facebook, google, john batelle, nexus one, twitter

Hi Newspapers – can I join the party?

December 4, 2009 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

Having spent a long time looking at, reading about, and experiencing firsthand the changes happening to print and digital mainstream media publishing, it’s a bit of a shock to find out I’ve gone down completely the wrong path.

Until now, I was siding with the view that complaining about Google ‘stealing’ the news and sending worthless visitors was more a sign of ineptitude and fear on the part of a traditional business model and industry which hasn’t radically changed in 100 years.

But then it struck me.

I write and publish content on two blogs.

That content is indexed by Google, even if I’m not a major contributor to Google News quite yet.

Google also supplies a lot of the advertising that appears on both my blogs.

Plus most of my blogging time is spent in Google Reader and Googlemail.

So that means if the newspapers can look for concessions from the Government, Google, Microsoft, and anywhere else they can think of, then so can I!

I can’t wait for the campaigning newspaper companies to get in touch and offer to help me as well. I might even get a call from Mr Murdoch himself.

And if cash isn’t forthcoming, I wouldn’t say no to a few links sending some more visitors my way… I don’t mind trying to make money from a much bigger pool of people…

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Filed Under: Digital Publishing, newspapers Tagged With: blogs, google, magazines, newspapers, publishing

Off to London Twestival tonight… And Google’s news masterstroke

September 10, 2009 By Dan Thornton 2 Comments

And then I’m spending a long weekend concentrating on my family, so don’t expect many updates until Monday…

Details of London Twestival 2009.

And in the meantime, two things have caught my attention:

One is the fact that the Government’s quoted figure of 7 million illegal file sharers seems to have been revealed as being spun out of a very small original survey, with some assumptions distorting the figures. (Hat Tip to JP Rangaswami)

The other is the response to newspapers from Google – they’re creating a micropayments system to appear within the next year. (via Mashable).

I’d guess there are a few reasons for Google adopting a checkout-type micropayment system for newspaper content:

It’ll shut the newspaper owners up for a while – allowing Google to press ahead with book deals etc to own even more alternative content.
It will also be available for Google properties, meaning that there are ways to cream off some of the money at the top, as well as by providing the service itself.
Bugger all people will embrace fixed internet micro payments for generic content.

The last one is the most important – and even in the world of mobile there are divisions between iPhone app spending and Android app spending which suggests that even on an supposedly highly chargeable platform (mobile), many people are starting to expect apps for free.

-NB- I’ve just though of another reason why this benefits Google more than anyone else:

If the newspapers are fooled into believing this system will make them rich, then they’ll start pushing pressure on aggregation sites to pay – Digg, Reddit, etc. Those sites are unlikely to be happy about paying for content, and the efforts and traffic newspapers currently drive from those sites will disappear. Meanwhile, the one aggregation destination which will be safe and secure will be: Google News.

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