If you are not aware of the news yet, then here’s the head line for you:
Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting. It’s built right into Gmail, so you don’t have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch — it just works. ~ Introducing Google Buzz
Yes. The Buzz just works out-of-the-box. That means when you are given the Buzz access you’ll find that there are already some people following you and you following some others too (Magic!).
Buzz chooses the people whom you contact often from you Gmail and add them as your followers or as the people you follow. And this information is available to public. Anyone who visits your Buzz profile can see the people you follow and your followers lists. Which implies that the public can see you email contact list, which is intended to be private. What!? Privacy?? Are you kidding?
What inspires the Gmail Buzz?
Here’s a short list of Gmail Buzz features and their possible inspiration sources:
Buzz Features = Status Updates (Facebook, Twitter) + Browse Friends updates (Facebook) + Follow/Unfollow/Followers (Twitter) + User Interface, Like + Comment options (Google Reader) + Inline images (Google Wave) + Group Messages (FriendFeed?) + @Notation (Twitter) + Noise (entire social networking sites 
)
Hmm. Seems like a mixture of various services? Did I miss anything in the above list?
Btw, you can turn off Buzz by clicking on the link which is there in the bottom of the Gmail page. Thanks @anandcv.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
It is not true that there is no privacy. Before you posted your first Buzz (until then your profile is not made public), there is a big message asking you to update your profile and you can set privacy settings there and it warns you what would happen if you don’t.
Once you go to your profile page, you can set it in such a way that no one can see whom you are following and who is following you.
It is just like twitter. When you sign-up information is public, but you can set it to protected. But here you do get a big warning to update your profile (better than twitter’s privacy I would say).
I agree that the Buzz showed me the message even before my first buzz. But what I’m concerned about is that the way Buzz automatically chooses my followers/and the people whom I follow.
Consider this scenario – when a new service is introduced, most people would be eagerly waiting to give the product a try without looking into much configurations and settings. Similarly people will be trying out Buzz also without knowing that the tool has configured the followers/follow list automatically. And worse, Buzz continues to add followers/follow list as we use it.
What I’m saying is, instead of Buzz adding the followers/follow, it should ask me to go ahead or not.
In simple words – it should be opt in and not opt out
Hope this answers some of your concerns.
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/millions-of-buzz-users-and-improvements.html
yes. I’m happy that Google has listened to the user’s feedback.
It’s still fresh and I still don’t know very much about it all however, it doesn’t seem to be very much more than what yahoo and other email providers have already been doing for some time. Any idea what the big deal is?
the only difference I can see is its from Google!