To Buzz or not to Buzz...

Admit it. You love Google. We love Google. Everyone loves Google. What started out as a simple search engine company has turned into a giant conglomeration of useful services. Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendar, iGoogle… the list goes on and on. If it’s an internet service, you can bet that Google has (or is planning to) come out with its own version.

Google just came out with yet another feature: Google Buzz. Basically, it’s a Facebook/Twitter competitor, allowing you to post status updates and follow your friends. It even lets you link with other sites, like Twitter and Flickr, so that you can keep all of your updates in one simple place. Best of all, it’s conveniently located right in your Gmail, so all you have to do is click a few buttons and you’re all set to go. For social networking lovers, it’s a dream come true – right?

Well, not quite. Google Buzz has some serious privacy issues that any potential user should be aware of.

Buzz Requires a Google Profile

To start with, when you create a Buzz account, you have to create a Google profile. This profile is public, so that, in Google’s terms, “friends can find and recognize you.” This means that your name and any personal information you put up on this page are automatically searchable in any search engine.

To counteract this issue, change your profile so that is doesn’t show your full name. However, anyone who knows the url of your profile can still view it – there’s no way to block it.

Which shows the world your gmail address

The second privacy issue has to do with the url of your profile page. It looks like this: www.google.com/profiles/yourgoogleusernamehere. If your Gmail address is the same as your Google username (and for many users, it is), then anyone who looks at your profile page can find your email address. Unless you want to let everyone in the world know how to directly contact you, this is a pretty serious issue.

To fix this, you can edit the url of your profile so that it ends in a bunch of numbers, like this: www.google.com/profiles/1111111111111111111. While it could be better – twenty random didgits at the end of your url can be nearly impossible to remember – at least this gives you a measure of privacy.

And then shares all of your contacts!

The final privacy issue is the one that had been causing some of the greatest controversy. When you create a Buzz account, it automatically sets you up to follow all the people you chat with and send emails to most often. This wouldn’t be so bad – except that all of those people are automatically posted to your profile page, so that the whole world can see your contacts list. The implications of this are almost frightening.

Again, there is a solution. You can edit your profile so that it doesn’t show your list of followers/followed, but if you have already made an account, you may have already exposed this information to anyone who was looking. It’s fixable – but you shouldn’t have to take that risk.

Google Buzz has great potential for social networking; it’s like combining email with Facebook. But all users should beware of the privacy issues – and maybe take some time to fix a few of them before actively using the site.

Useful Links

A guide to making your followers list private

Google Buzz Launch Video

One of the many cool features (not to ignore the others) is the mighty Google Reader and the handy link Gmail provides when your in-box is empty. OK, OK not everyone manages to empty their in-box… but you can access Google Reader from the standard Google navigation as well.

OK, that’s nice, but what does Reader do anyway? Google Reader is basically an RSS feed reader. It reads the feeds from all of your favorite blogs and puts them in one place. What a great way to keep up to date on what your favorites are writing about. And the best part is, you only have to go to one place to find them all!

So what is RSS?  Basically, RSS Feeds are a way for Web sites to distribute their content beyond just visitors browsing their site. They allow you to subscribe to regular updates delivered to your feed reader (Google Reader), and make it possible for site content to be packaged into other formats for use just about anywhere. Want to know more about feeds? Take a look at this post on the seOverflow blog to get the low down on the “how to”, what’s it all about, etc. or this Google help article – Feed 101.

Happy Feed Reading!

Mike Belasco with seOverflow, wrote a great article about just that over at www.localsearchnews.net: When Rankings Equal Rating, a great read about how Google has become not just a household name, but also represents trust to many consumers.

So hop on over to give the article a read, and let us know what you are doing with your Google rankings!