I’m not gonna talk much about today’s Buzz. Plenty of other blogs have covered that.
The current user interface is decent, but users are already demanding enhancements - more user and content filtering, better private group management, an interface separate from Gmail. And I fully expect that Buzz will continue to improve.
But if you really want to know where Buzz is headed, skip all those fancy video presentations and go straight to the Google Buzz API specifications. Not a geek? Fine. I’ll do my best to summarize what’s there. The short answer: Google isn’t just trying to build another Twitter or Facebook. What they really want to do is completely change social networking entirely.
It’s all about the APIs
The APS’s look promising.
Every one of the API’s is built upon existing web standards. All of them are open. There really isn’t a single “Google Buzz API”.
Instead we are looking at a suite of specifications that could be used by Google or any of their competitors.
The APIs are for more mature, and allow for decent levels of security and authorization, but they don’t actually force everything to be “inside” Buzz’s network itself. On the face of it, Google is making it easier and faster to “aggregate’ all of your social networks, regardless if it originates from Twitter or Facebook or Flickr.
But it really looks like Google wants to get a step PAST simple aggregation – Google is laying the internet foundation to “integrate” all of your separate social networks into a unified social experience.
Atom Syndication Format
Atoms feeds are basically a way to collapse a sequence of items (like your Posts, Videos, Tweets) into a feed that can be “published” in a channel that everybody understands. From RSS, the internet built all sorts of we now have New feeds, audio and video podcasts. There is nothing exactly new or surprising here about using ATOM, since it’s already a standard used to allow us to create virtual radio and TV channels (podcasts), publish news and blogs feeds – it’s even supported by Twitter to feeds of tweets.
But the original ATOM specification wasn’t designed for communication as fast as twitter. It defined an easy way to “Publish” data, but no way to notify interested parties that there is something new to read.
So subscribers had to constantly have to query each feed’s web server, to see if there is any new data. If a subscriber is interested in many different feeds, then the constant amount of query becomes problematic for both web servers, and users.
It creates a lot of “useless” traffic pings. Some feeds may only post 2 messages a day. Others post a few times a second.
PubSubHubhub (PuSH)
PubSubHubhub protocol allows for very fast Publication/subscribe logic on data feeds. This is an attempt to “fix” some of the performance problem of polling. Any Atom feeds can use a PuSH server allow subscribers to receive an HTTP callback whenever the data in the feed changes. No more 1440 hits a day, plus you can often get informed in SECONDS instead of minutes that information you want to see has changed. A good TechCrunch article explains some of the advantages of PuSH protocol, including support for “fat pings” – which means that that subscribers can get simultaneously notified that a change has occurred AND new copy of the item that has changed. No need to query it all.
Notifications can be insanely fast, and allow for real-time speeds in communications. However they PuSH servers themselves are more complicated to implement and support.
Feedburner already supports it as part of their Pingshot service. Any blogger that uses Feedburner can get PuSH level performance now can get it for free.
Social Graph API
The Social Graph API which should allow the ability for a cleaner integration of 3rd party services into Google Buzz. I expect Facebook (or a Facebook 3rd party app) to start creating Social Graph API compatible extensions soon, to make it more Buzz friendly. My “Facebook” friends with Buzz accounts could be imediately identified. It helps two different (ex: Twitter and Google) immediately “discover” that the same user is present on both networks. With the Social Graph API, I could go to my WordPress.com blog, and add a social “link” back to my Buzz account. Likewise I would go to my Buzz account and add a WordPress.com link. Once both services “validated” that they are related to each other, Buzz would immediately allow you to instantly “publishing” your WordPress.com messages directly into Buzz.
Salmon
The Salmon Protocol allows different accounts accross different Domains to “comment” on a given post and get immediate notifications of the update. For example: you could synch Buzz posts to your MySpace or your Facebook account. When another Facebook friend leave a comment, the comment could immediately (via PuSH) be fed right back to the synchronized Buzz post. You could even have a conversation start between a Facebook user and a MySpace user arguing back and forth within a stream of synchronized comments.
Atom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub)
Google plans to support the Atom Publishing Protocol. It’s a simple web standard, using HTTP GET and POST, to enable direct modifications on an Atom Feed.
This should acually allow 3rd party clients to edit and modify a Buzz postings directly. We should start seeing “better” Buzz clients – much like we now see with Twitter and Facebook. Buzz postings could be created, modified and destroyed by all sorts of potential clients interfaces. Don’t like Buzz in Gmail? Fine – write your own interface!
Google could ALSO eventually allow you to start modiying feeds that are actually stored on OTHER Social networking sites. (Assuming those sites support AtomPub). By enabling the direct modification of items ACROSS two different domains, the entire internet becomes “stitched” together into a highly integrated social network. “Tweet” from Facebook. “Poke” from Buzz. Leave a comment on a friends MySpace profile, and get his reply back in your Buzz account.
Company’s could even unify their intranet into Buzz and Facebook, but still control access to who can really see what.
WebFinger
The WebFinger is currently a work in progress.
But at it’s heart is to create a standard way for websites to go from a users email address (ex: mike@insertwonderhere.com) and be able to discover all kinds of other pieces of information about them. A user could publish phone numbers, address, and links to all the sites that they use: Flickr, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, etc.
Worried about security? Most WebFingers profiles will actually just list a set of other internet urls that need to be interrogated to get the users actual information. But by doing that, the person or website “fingering” a user will have to be granted permission to use it. WebFinger is just a quick way to go from any email address, and then be able to connect into that users “networks”.
For example, a toaster collector discovers a web site that is full of other toaster collectors.
When he registers at the site, instead of asking them to create a username, account and password, he just enters his existing email address. The forum website software could use WebFinger to automatically discover the list of “networks” he currently participates, and within a few clicks, he has discovered that one his existing work buddies is also crazy about vintage toasters.
If WebFinger support grows, people will find more uses for it. Ex: A user could change his phone number connected to his WebFinger profile, and within minutes, all of his friends’ Blackberrys and iPhones could be instantly updated, regardless if those people are “Google” or “Facebook” users.
Where are Applications?
Google Buzz doesn’t seem to defined “applications” like you see in Facebook.
A huge precentage of Facebook screentime is actually spent playing stupid Zynga games. Facebook has benefited 3rd party apps from increasing people’s screentime.
Is there a Buzz equivilant? I haven’t found it.
Although this makes sense. By integrating Buzz into Gmail, Google has a huge dis-incentive to giving anybody else “screen space”.
Google does not want to annoy it’s users with the level of application “spam” that Facebook must wrestle with.
Although there is no doubt someone will figure out how to do it.
Developers will probably tray and embed custom Flash apps that might appear inside a Buzz posting. That could allow for interesting types of interactions.
But that doesn’t seem to be Google’s initial focus with Buzz.
What is MORE likely is that providers like Zynga will find ways to publish messages that lure users to their own domains, where you can still hang out with friends in your virtual cafe.
What does it mean.
These protocols all hint at a way to integrate social transactions that are not “owned” by any single domain.
And they are all open and bi-directional. A competitor might be able to build their own private version of “Buzz” with their own domain and GUI, but be instantly “plugged into” Buzz-verse via AtomPub and Salmon, sending messages back and forth between the different sites.
This is in direct contrast to the Facebook Walled Garden approach.
But it would also open up a more competitive market – since the API’s may let you leave a provider like Facebook or Buzz, but not require you to sever your existing social relationships.
That’s the way Email works today. Google design strategy points towards a the ability to perform all the same sort of wall-posts, pokes and tweets we do today, but be able to do it across all domains.
They seem to want to force open all the existing social networks to play friendly with each other.
Coming soon: the Read/Write version of Google Buzz.
When Google finally starts to open up support for AtomPub and Salmon, you will immediately start to see a more seamless integration between Buzz and other online services. New Twitter/Facebook/Buzz mashups to hit the network quickly. If developers aren’t already prototyping them – they should be!
Most blogger software (Blogger, WordPress, Typepad) will build ways for their users to integrate Buzz seamlessly, so that any given website or Blog could publish your activity back to your Buzz friends. I expect Google launch support for some of these features shortly before or after Google I/O in May 2010.
But I doubt we will see a very seamless Facebook/Google integration for a while!
Instead Google will embrace all the “tiny” social players on the network – the small little blogs and web forums. As the open source driven web starts to embrace these API’s and begin to become more tightly integrated, Facebook and other networks will be forced to establish the same level of support.
But since much the protocols are bi-directional, there is also an implicit “tit-for-tat” negotiation. Networks like Facebook will be forced to chose between “letting in” all the tiny 3rd party media sources, or shutting out their major competitors like Google.
How Google will win.
Facebook now drives more internet traffic then Google. That’s because people influence each other more than a search engine can.
Google must have a good social network strategy, if they want to keep they want to keep themselves squarely at the center of the internet.
Their Buzz strategy is simple but kind of brilliant:
Force the rest of the Internet to open up their networks and interconnect their networks to Buzz.
It is in direct contrast to older social network strategies that attempts to keep their users squarely married to their service alone.
So we won’t see a very seamless Facebook/Google integration for a while, although I expect some third party providers to try to mash them up.
Instead Google will encourage all the “smaller players” mini-networks, like blogs and forums, to integrate themselves together. Their incentive will be getting their content directly into millions of GMail boxes.
But since much the protocols are bi-directional, there is also an implicit “tit-for-tat” exchange. Networks like Facebook will be forced to also “letting in” the rest of the internet, but shutting out their major competitors like Google. If a AtomPub/Oath emerge beats proprietary solutions like Facebook Connect,
And the History of the internet favors the decentralized, open-source standards. Google doesn’t just want to create “another social network”.
The Internet itself is, and always will be, the “real” network. Google just wants to fix it.
Today, you can’t leave Facebook without leaving your friends behind.
If (and when) Google wins, you will.
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