Monday, February 15, 2010
Google Buzz and Outlook 2010 Social Connector: Competitors or partners? | Web Apps News - Betanews
Since the launch of Google Buzz last Tuesday, we've been hearing more analyses from professionals and bloggers warning of a possible showdown of sorts between Google and Microsoft in the social space. Buzz is Google's social connection with its Gmail; but Microsoft already announced last year its own social connection with its mail platform: the forthcoming Social Connector plug-in for Outlook 2010, due for release with the rest of Microsoft Office 2010 this June. The latest release candidate for Office 2010 was distributed to private testers earlier this month.
Social Connector promises to transform Outlook 2010 into a live network teeming with contacts who share not just e-mail, but chats and texts through Windows Live and documents through SharePoint. Messages received from a "live" contact will be adorned with that person's availability, location, and a record of recent activities. Though LinkedIn has already signed on as Microsoft's first third-party partner, connectivity with Facebook -- probably distributed by Facebook, not Microsoft -- appears likely. So much of the same kind of functionality folks are seeing with Buzz, will likely appear in Outlook as well, although slanted more toward professional tasks rather than personal friends and acquaintances.
Microsoft's early response to Buzz was covered last Tuesday by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley was that the company felt there were already enough social networks to go around without Google building another one. But that response came from a Windows Live product manager -- someone defending a product that Microsoft is building into a social network. As Mary Jo and others who've also covered Microsoft for decades know full well, the other end of the Redmond campus may as well be a different hemisphere.
So although the initial implication of that response appeared to be a defensive strike, the truth of the matter is, Social Connector is being designed to connect to social networks, not to become one. It doesn't have to be perceived as going head-to-head against Buzz unless that's how Microsoft insists on marketing it. The very real possibility exists that Buzz could be connected to Social Connector, by means of the open API that Microsoft began distributing to Office developers since the release of the public beta.
A snippet from the activities list that appears beside a contact or a contact's e-mail message, in Outlook 2010 with Social Connector attached. [Courtesy Microsoft]
Betanews asked Microsoft spokespersons representing that opposite hemisphere, how likely is it that Google Buzz will become represented in Outlook Social Connector? Technically, we were told, it's absolutely feasible. Microsoft would not preclude Google from making Buzz connectivity feasible in Social Connector. What that means is that it won't be Microsoft that does the deed, though it may be Microsoft that provides the incentive for Google to do the deed -- and that makes it look like Google's the one that's abstaining, if it chooses not to take action.
Will Google do the deed? Betanews asked our contacts at Google, who firmly responded with several "no comments" embellished with the telltale phrase "for now." Spokespersons cautiously agreed that the phrase "for now" is intentional; that this situation could change without notice...making this one of the more telling sets of "no comments" we could receive.
![A snippet from the activities list that appears beside a contact or a contact's e-mail message, in Outlook 2010 with Social Connector attached. [Courtesy Microsoft]](http://images.betanews.com/media/4525.jpg "A snippet from the activities list that appears beside a contact or a contact's e-mail message, in Outlook 2010 with Social Connector attached. [Courtesy Microsoft]")
Friday, February 12, 2010
We Are the World 25 For Haiti Debuts on YouTube [VIDEO]
Following up on the success of the star studded TV and Internet streamed “Hope for Haiti Now” event last month, a new version of “We Are the World” has premiered on YouTube, featuring more than 75 artists.
The video was directed by Paul Haggis, produced by Quincy Jones, and features a diverse array of artists including Mary J. Blige, Tony Bennett, YouTube (
) phenom Justin Bieber, and a flashback to Michael and Janet Jackson performing the song 25 years ago in a similar fundraiser for Africa.
The charitable connection here is a digital download – all proceeds from sales of the song on iTunes go to Haiti relief. The We Are the World Foundation website also offers other ways to donate, as well as more information about the song.
On choosing to use YouTube for distribution, the legendary Jones says in a Q&A that “… with the stroke of a key on your keyboard or cell phone, images and messages can be transferred all around the world to hundreds of millions of people in seconds. That’s an enormous amount of power. How can you not try and harness that resource to help people in need?”
We imagine the results here will indeed be huge. In addition to the YouTube premiere, the song played during the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics earlier this evening.
I'm sure about the auto-tune, but over all it's good.
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Follow the 2010 Olympics on your smartphone with Winter Sports Live | Smartphones and Cell Phones | ZDNet.com
The 2010 Winter Olympics kicks off just 3 hours north of me in Vancouver, Canada tonight and I just received a note from Handmark about a great free application to help you keep up to date on the activities at the Olympics. Handmark’s Winter Sports Live is available for Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile users as a free download. You will get access to news, photos, scores, and more so check it out on your device.
To start with I downloaded it to my Google Nexus One (found it in the Android Market) and have to say this will most likely be the primary way I will be following the Winter Games. I am a bigger fan of the Summer Olympics, but do like to follow some of the major downhill events, bobsledding, and speed skating. The interface is pretty slick and performance is fast. There is not a lot of content up yet since the events do not kick off until tomorrow, but there are some photos and news articles to check out at this time.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
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Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Google Buzz: The Missing Features
ReadWriteWeb's full coverage and analysis of Google Buzz:
- Our live blog from the announcement
- How Google Buzz is Disruptive: Open Data Standards
- Can Google Buzz Succeed Where FriendFeed Couldn't?
- Google Buzz: The Mainstream's Geo-Social Network?
- Facebook on Google Buzz: How Well Does That Friendship Model Work?
- Google Buzz in Enterprise - Will Need to Overcome Google Apps Limitations
Make it easier to find friends and interesting people and don't assume that my Google Contacts are the people I want to follow: Google assumes that your social network is easily accessible from your Google Contacts, but for a lot of people who use their Gmail account mostly for work or to talk to their families, Google Contacts isn't representative of who they would want to follow on a FriendFeed/Facebook-like service. Google says that it plans to surface items from outside of your contacts that it thinks will be interesting to you, but we have yet to see these on Buzz.
Lists: Twitter has lists, Facebook has lists, FriendFeed has lists and Buzz should have lists, too. Sometimes, you just want to see updates from your family and sometimes you just want to see what the bloggers you follow on Buzz are saying. Google could just integrate with with Google Contacts (though maybe that just leads to other problems).
Better Filters: Some people love to share Google Reader posts, others tweet like there is no tomorrow. Google will pull all of these messages into your stream and as of now, you can't tell Buzz to just selectively ignore all Google Reader posts from one person or all the tweets of another without unfollowing all the messages from this person. According to Google, Buzz will automatically weed out posts you are likely to skip. For now, it doesn't seem like it is doing this yet.
Speed up imports from third-party services: Currently, it can take quite a while before buzz pulls in tweets and shared items from Google Reader. Given how much emphasis Google is putting on the real-time aspect of Buzz, it would be nice if these updates came in a lot faster. Also, because Google seems to import updates in batches, you often get a huge number of tweets or Google Reader shares from one person that takes up most of the space on Buzz.
Support more third-party services: You can only connect Buzz to a handful of third-party services like Flickr, Twitter and Google Reader. If your Google Profile contains the right links to other services like Yelp, it can also pull this data in as well if you follow these directions. It would also be nice if Google detected more video services when you attach a link to a post. Right now, it will show YouTube videos (and also Flickr photos) when you attach a link, but not videos from DailyMotion or Vimeo.
Don't clutter our inboxes with new buzzes: By default, Buzz puts notifications about updates and new messages into your Gmail inbox. By the time you follow more than 20 active Buzz users, this can quickly clog up your inbox and drown out your regular email conversations. We shouldn't have to create a special filter with a relatively arcane command (label:buzz) to banish these messages.
Allow mobile users to set fuzzy locations: As of now, you can either give your followers access to your exact location or not attach any location data to your messages at all. It would be nice if you could just set a town or neighborhood as your location so that you can share where you are, while still keeping your precise location private.
What Else is Missing?
Obviously, Google Buzz is just a day old, so it's only normal that there are still some bugs in the system and that the user experience could use some polishing. If you have used Buzz already, what features do you miss? Let us know in the comments.