Buzz Off, Google Buzz

Like many of you out there, I turned Google Buzz on the second I was able to give it a go. When Google releases a product, it’s a bit like when Apple releases something new. Everybody lines up around the block and camps out for days on the concrete to get their hands on it. And just like those Apple addicts, we all should have just waited for the, ahem, buzz on Buzz to die down.

Turns out, Buzz was a bit of a buzz-kill.  (I’m going overboard on the puns, but I can’t help it.)  First and foremost, it had/has some very serious privacy concerns that caused an uproar among the more intelligent early adopters.  Further, it doesn’t add anything new to the market.  What it did do was tie a few other Google products together along with several of the more popular social apps like Twitter.  Whoopty Do.  There was no significant difference that it brought to the table.  What it really comes down to is Google doing something they don’t usually do.  Playing Catch-up.

As far as Buzz  is concerned, Google is to social media as Microsoft is to Search.  Always the bastard child that’s late to the party.  Everybody knows that you’ll never get to dance with the prom queen that way.  Google needs to go back to being innovative.  I’m beginning to wonder if Google, like Microsoft, hasn’t taken the complacency path for corporate development.  Let everybody else do the hard research and then just buy them up.  It’s worked well for Microsoft hasn’t it?  (I’m only being slightly tongue-in-cheek here.)

Bottom line for me, I don’t need yet another social app begging for my time.  I turned Buzz off.

Digging for Content

Part of the reason that it’s been so awfully quiet around here is that I’ve been struggling a lot with coming up wih content.  When I first began writing here, it seemed easy.  And in fact, it usually was.  Now?  Not so much.

What changed?  Me.  I think.  I used to be ok with trolling around the internet looking for the latest thing and trying to piggyback onto it with a comment or two.  I think I still am.  For the most part.  However, I seem to be having one heck of a time finding anything that I’m even remotely interested in to comment on.  Let’s see.  There’s the iPad.  I can’t stand Apple. I can’t even tell you why other than I think there’s a part of me that hates them because they are the cool kids and I never was.  Add on to that the fact that the iPad is not much more than a fancy ebook reader, and I have a hard time finding any real comments on it.

Lately, there’s been a fair amount of talk (buzz, if you will) about Google Buzz.  I’ve been playing with it a little and am still waiting for that lightbulb to light up when I figure out why it’s any better than any of the other services out there that I already use and already have set up the way I want.  So far, that hasn’t happened.  In fact, at the moment, I think it’s inferior to most of the services that it’s trying to replace.

There just is very little that I see that really entices me and jumps up and down yelling “Hey, Blogger!  Write about me!”.  So, I wander around going through my list on Google Reader, watching my feeds on Twitter, and even popping on to Facebook now and again for something other than games.  If I’m desperate, I might even pop over to Digg, Techmeme, or Technorati.

So, how do you find your content?  Where do you find your inspiration?  Tell me.  Share with me.