Today I stumbled upon a website Tw2Buzz. Tw2Buzz allows you to import your contacts from your twitter account straight into your Google Buzz account.

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The last big news for the Google Buzz was an application hitting the iPhone well not Android users have no reason to wait either! The Google Buzz widget sits nicely on the android phone allowing you to update your Buzz on the move. As it is a mobile application it also allows you to use the inbuilt GPS and update your Buzz followers with your exact location.

The widget which is available on the Android Market for free runes on version 1.6 and higher.

Currently it is only available in English but Google say they will be adding more languages shortly.

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Buzzie, the first iPhone app aimed squarely at users of Google’s new social networking tool Google Buzz is in the iTunes App store.

The app gives non-Buzz users a taste of what the service is all about by letting them tune into Buzz conversations in their local area without logging into the service.  Once logged in, however, avid Buzzers can start conversations, or join in with their followers.

As with the mobile web app made available at launch by Google, it’s possible to mark your Buzz as private or public and decide whether you wish to publish your  location, which is selected by the iPhone’s GPS.

If you spot someone new and interesting having a conversation with someone you follow, it’s easy to grab their details , who they are following and a chronological list of their Buzzes.  If you decide to follow them, you can do so with a single click.

On the home screen you have the option of viewing your own Buzzes, in the same way that you might view your Twitter timeline in on of the many third party Twitter apps.

Photos and other attachments are quick and easy to view within specific Buzz messages and are quickly saved to the iPhone’s photo album.

As with the web app, you can also search for people to add to your Buzz following list.

In short, Buzzie is simple, straight forward and slicker than the mobile web app.  Doubtless Buzzie is the first of many Google Buzz apps, but for those iPhone users who have already caught the Buzz bug, take a look.  During launch week there’s a third off the price – it’s available for £1.19/$1.99.

[via thenextweb]

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Buzz Can Tweet

Your buzz will automatically be sent to Twitter and will include a link back to your buzz, which means that all your Twitter followers can enjoy all photos, videos etc without having to follow you on Buzz. Messages can be longer than 140 characters as your followers can just hit the link to read the rest.

All your Buzz content will be shared, whether you send it from Gmail, Google Maps or any other Buzz client. We will not however include buzz imported from Twitter.

A side effect is that all the tweeted buzz will find its way back to Buzz if you have enabled Twitter in Buzz. You can either remove Twitter polling from Buzz or manually delete the retweeted buzz until Google gives a workable solution.

Know issue: Tweets sometimes lag behind. This is something that’s wrong on the Buzz end and will hopefully be fixed soon.

Features

• Send buzz to Twitter.
• Use your own Bit.ly account for links.
• Selective tweeting, only tweet buzz with keyword #twitter (customizable).
• Exclude text after keyword (customizable).
• No link back to Buzz when under 140 characters (customizable).
• Access settings via the control panel.

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[By Carlee Mallard]

I want to start out by saying that I am a Google fan all the way. Google.com is my homepage. I use the phrase “just Google it” just about anywhere and with anyone. If you don’t use Gmail you’re probably not a very good friend of mine. And I’m ashamed to say that I even subconsciously judge people by their email provider choice. Gmail is clearly the superior choice, right? Well, at least in my social circle.

The fact of the matter is that Gmail users are overwhelmingly younger than AOL, Yahoo, and Hotmail users (nearly 50% of Gmail users are under age 25). Not only that, but Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are more popular among Gmail users than either Hotmail or Yahoo users, but at the same time average fewer social media profiles. It kind of makes sense. Gmail came out years after the other services and those who already had established accounts probably didn’t want to change. But they also created multiple social media accounts not really knowing which ones would be valuable, whereas Gmail users have been much more selective about which social media accounts they put their name on (see: Hotmail Users have Most Profiles, Gmail Users Better-Connected).

Then Google came out with a “social network” of their own: Google Buzz. Instead of giving users the option to sign up as we do for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, this new network was automatically forced upon all Gmail users. The same users who already use Facebook and Twitter in droves, have more friends on those social networks than other email users, and as I said earlier are very selective about which social networks they participate in.

I was pretty torn myself about Google Buzz at first (well, I still am). On one side, I love everything Google and was super excited to play with the new features Google launched. On the other side, I was overwhelmed by the idea of having to monitor another social network. But just as I was excited about Google Wave, I’ve been highly disappointed with the reality.

Where is the value? If we’re going to be selective about which social networks we use, then we’re going to immediately try to determine the value of Google Buzz. At least in my experience, my Buzz alerts are few and far between and mostly consist of my contacts’ Twitter and Google Reader feeds (what’s the point? I’m already reading those in Tweetdeck or my Reader). Either that or people straight up asking “so is anyone actually using Google Buzz?” It also seems to be creating more buzz outside of Google Buzz than within the network itself. We’re already using Twitter to make new connections. We’re already using Google Reader to keep tabs on all our favorite blogs and our friends’ recommended articles. We’re already using Facebook to keep in touch with friends and make in-depth public comments on statuses & articles. We’re already using Gtalk to instant message our friends, family and business contacts privately. In fact, everything we know about Gmail is that it’s private, yet Google Buzz has some serious privacy concerns.

Whatever little value Buzz has added to my life is far outweighed by the need to simplify and reduce the amount of repetitive information dumped in my inbox. Yes Gen Y is pretty good at processing large quantities of information, but we still don’t want to process the same information more than once. There’s no value in that and even more importantly, it is a waste of our time.

Author: Carlee Mallard – I’m a 2007 graduate of UNC – Chapel Hill where I studied Psychology, Geography and Urban Planning. I currently spend my weekdays conducting education survey research for the government, but you’ll find me dabbling in photography, entrepreneurship, traveling domestically & internationally, savings our cities from historic destruction/cars/sprawl/simplicity, relationships, lifestyle design and writing. You can find me on twitter @carleemallard too!

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Google Buzz = Free SEO? Google Buzz news has put together the top 10 ways to use Google Buzz to your advantage and increase your SEO score. No need to pay hundreds of dollars for SEO techniques, these are all FREE!!

1. indexing – Nobody expected Google to ignore the data coming in from Buzz. the most logical step is to use it for quick indexing of new content. I’ll test that but others have already written that Google will index links you post on Buzz. So to get a new page indexed post it on Buzz or better include a buzz button.
2. keyword research – use buzzzy.com, the third party Google Buzz search engine to find out currently popular keywords. They’re displayed right on the homepage as “popular searches”
3. link building – This is obvious: Google Buzz does not use “nofollow” as Google moves away from this mistake of the past. the nofollow attribute backfired for Google as they can’t index most links these days. Thus they’ve decided not to cripple their own site at least. Twitter adds nofollow to all links in tweets by now, even those to your tweets and profile. Some people only add their Twitter feed to Buzz in order to get it properly indexed and followed.
4. real time search – Google Buzz items don’t appear correctly in real time results on Google yet but they surely will soon. I guess it’s one of the main reasons Google introduced Buzz, to compete with Twitter etc. for attention. So if you care about timely or real time results start using Buzz.
5. personal branding - Buzz is very closely connected to your Google Profile. indeed it even hijacks it as Danny Sullivan calls it. It’s a double edged sword but you can use to your won advantage as well. choose your buzzes wisely only buzzing the quality stuff and keep the chatter on Twitter and this way you can brand yourself as an expert via your Google Profile. on Twitter the links you post get forgotten almost immediately, on Buzz each time someone comments they end up on top again. So a great item might get attention over and over.
6. microblogging – While most people compare Buzz to Twitter and Facebook it’s in reality rather a Tumblr and Posterous rival. It’s good for content you just drop quick and dirty without much fuss. Tumblr and Posterous are still much better but Google is bigger. So choose one. why use microblogging at all? consider this buzz of mine where I ridicule a SEO spammer. This is not the kind of quality content I’ll post on a regular blog and it’s too long for Twitter. It’s an ideal chunk for Buzz.
7. content creation – I’d call it content theft but when Google does it it can’t be bad can it? You can repost whole blog posts via Google Reader. as Google facilitates that you can now share (steal) content and get away with it.
8. crowdsourcing - Crowdsourcing on Twitter is great because of the easy to use nature of it, the critical mass and the responsiveness of real followers. It’s annoying to have to post tweets over and over to make people contribute though. on Buzz one item will suffice. Additions get collected as comments and each time a new comment comes in the item ends up on top of your Google Buzz interface. Isn’t that much more convenient?
9. multi-platform publishing – In case you don’t care for duplicate content and you are rather keen on getting seen everywhere Buzz is is your friend among other services. I expect Ping.fm and similar services to support Buzz and then it can become another channel for your content. I’m not a friend of this type of cross-posting but I even know non SEO people who do that. why publish only in one volatile place or use several services each of them separately? Isn’t it a waste. I can’t argue with that.
10. life streaming – those of you who already have used Friendfeed now what I’m talking about. You can use Buzz as a life streaming tool as well adding your contributions and content from elsewhere. It doesn’t support as many services as FF but I guess it soon will. So in case you don’t use Friendfeed or like me you’re to seldom actually visit their site you might consider Buzz for life streaming instead.

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Since the release of Google buzz many extensions, hints, tips, and resources have been released for Google Buzz, here is a summary of some of the most needed ones!

Chrome Extension

Firefox Addon

1.How to turn off buzz

2. Hide Google buzz update

3. How to remove buzz from inbox

Step1:  click the ‘ create a filter ‘ link in Gmail

Step 2 : Type label:buzz in the first text box

Click Next step button, It will warn you that

Filter searches containing label and a few other search operators won’t work

Don worry it wont create any problem. click OK.

Step 3: Finally tick the checkbox next to “skip the inbox” and click create filter button.

Now your inbox is free from Buzz mails.

4. Update Buzz via Email :

You can able to update Buzz via Email. Just send an email to buzz@gmail.com using your gmail address.You can attach photos to that mail , it will be displayed in your buzz.
5. Prevent chat Status messages from being posted to buzz :

By default your chat status messages are posted to your buzz feed. whenever you don’t want particular chat  status to get posted on buzz , just mention parentheses around it so that it wont get updated to your buzz.

6. Link to a Buzz post :

Each buzz post has a link, which you can use it everywhere. click the down arrow button in the upper right hand corner of the post,select ‘link to this post’

7. View the summary of your Buzz activity

visit www.google.com/dashboard to see your consolidated summary of your data associated with your google account.

8. Stop the current conversation

if you want to stop the comments of your post from being displayed on your buzz.,just mute that post so that you can receive all comments to your inbox rather than displaying it on the buzz.

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Google Buzz monitoring with Google’s Rick Klau, who used to run the publihser team at Feedburner, and is currently the Business Product Manager for Google’s Blogger.

Klau says Buzz monitoring is “definitely” as important as monitoring another critical component of reputation management,  Google Blog Search. “As a product manager on Blogger, I regularly monitor Twitter and Buzz in addition to blog comments to look for users having problems or sharing interesting ideas,” he tells us. “It’s important to go where the users are – otherwise you’ll miss out on conversations that are happening, and miss the opportunity to help solve a problem, learn about an issue that needs attention, or share a tip that deserves a broader audience.”

“The real-time nature of tools like Buzz, along with the ease with which users can share and redistribute info, makes the amplification of information even more powerful than it was before,” adds Klau. “News has the opportunity to spread virally, very quickly.”

“That’s great if it’s good news, but potentially damaging if it’s bad news,” he says. “That’s why it’s so important to both look for conversations happening about topics that matter to you, and to engage where appropriate. When users know you’re listening, and in a position to help, they can go from angry to appreciative pretty quickly.”

Klau discusses Buzz monitoring in more detail in a post on his personal blog. In it, he provides more information about specifically how he uses Buzz for monitoring purposes, and provides steps to do it like he does.

First, he says to enable Gmail’s “Quick Links” tab, which puts a box below Labels in Gmail. Then he says to go to Buzz, type in a query, and click “Add Quick Link” in the Quick Links box. This creates a bookmark to the query, allowing for easy access to the latest “buzz” on a query.

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Google Buzz has received over 31 Million users since its release, since then it has been receiving large amount of complaints about the privacy of your Google Buzz account. Unfortunately for Google, where there are complaints, there are law suits.

One of these 31 Million users named Eva Hibnick and her lawyers are taking on the big team of Google alleging they released personal information without her permission.

The legal complaint accuses Google of breaking various electronic communications laws, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The plaintiff is seeking injunctions to prevent the company from taking similar actions in the future, and unspecified monetary relief.

We will keep you updated as this progresses.

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Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) have filed a complaint with the FCC against Google Buzz not being an Opt-In service.

There has been a lot of controversy against Google’s privacy regulations since the release of Buzz, one of which is that all Gmail users were automatically signed up to Google Buzz and were not given an option to ‘Opt-In’. Not only were you forced to have an account your account was automatically made public allowing people to see who you talk to frequently. Google responded quickly and released changes which allowed you to block this along with other features, however, EPIC want to go one step further.

EPIC’s complaint :

Compel Google to make Google Buzz a fully opt-in service for Gmail users;
Compel Google to cease using Gmail users’ private address book contacts to compile social networking lists;
Compel Google to give Google Buzz users more control over their information, by allowing users to accept or reject followers from the outset; and
Provide such other relief as the Commission finds necessary and appropriate.

Read more at the EPIC press release (PDF) and the FCC complaint (PDF)

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