Every Tips You Ever Need to Know About Google Buzz

Article Last Updated: 23^rd Apr 2010
Posted by Ruhani Rabin in Social Media | View Comments |

You felt left out. Alone.

You are at the Dark corner of your �room and confused about Buzz. But willing to try it out?

Understood! I’m here! I’ll show you everything you need to Rock on Google Buzz

So what is this Buzz about Google Buzz?

Google Buzz is a social media application integrated with your Gmail account. It is kind of like friendfeed and part of it looks like twitter. It allows you to follow your contacts and integrates itself with your verified websites.
In simple terms:
Share your updates to your known contacts or to the world
It’s integrated in your Gmail inbox, conversations are grouped just like your emails
No need to install any add-ons or software
Upload and share photos, maybe you can write a short story about that photo
Share a link, with your own words
Ability to like or comment on any Buzz
Connect popular Social Media platforms like Twitter, Flickr, Picasa, Blogger, Wordpress, Google Reader and many others.
Allows updating your Buzz when you publish any topics or photos on these social media platforms
Mobile device friendly
The power of �Ajax, no need to refresh your timeline. It is real-time
Allows you to email any of your favorite Buzz to others

That is the simplest way to put a description of Buzz when it is actually much more interactive. There are many other �possibilities.

Long story short.

I’m here to show you how to get started with Google Buzz.

Step 1:

If you do not have a Google profile, create one for yourself. I would suggest when you set the profile URL, please use your full name.

Remember what is your profile address which you can share via Email or IM.

Access your profile and click “Edit Profile” located at the right side top of your screen.

Fill up the necessary information. Scroll down to the “Links” section.

Google will then try to determine your websites and present you with a list of suggestion.

Add your favorite sites from the suggestions to your Google profile.

Now here is something you need to know. If you have any 3rd party sites like Posterous or Tumblr, you need to do some code changes in their themes. Go to theme edit mode. Place this piece of code right after the <head> tag:

1	<link href="http://www.google.com/profiles/your.name" rel="me" type="text/html" />

This is to ensure that Google consider those sites verified as yours.

Note: the part “your.name” should be changed to your username on Google profile.

Edit your theme at Posterous (Advanced Tab), add the <link> tag:

Edit your theme at Tumblr (Theme Tab), add the <link> tag:

TIP: This is applicable on any website which allows you to edit the HTML of their theme or skin.

Rather than wait for the Google crawler to re-visit your site, you can use the Social Graph API Recrawl �tool to force recrawl your sites for verification. This wonderful tool created by �Brad Fitzpatrick and Brett Slatkin.

TIP: You can use the “Recrawl” buttons to force check your site status again. The Green arrow means your site is verified.

Privacy Concerns

In default setting in Buzz might expose contacts to each other or to the public. This issue pointed out by �Phillip Lenssen which could be a great concern about privacy.

What should you do:

Go to your Google Profile Page
Edit your Google Profile
Click on “About me” Tab
Go to Right hand section and un-check the box for “Display the list of people I’m following and people following me”

Step 2:

If you are not already on Buzz. You can opt-in anytime by going Google Buzz.

Navigate to your Buzz, it is right under your Inbox in GMail.

For the first timers, Buzz will present you with a list of suggested followers and will ask you to connect your sites.

Connect your sites:

Once your sites are connected, these sites will automatically post Buzz depending on the new content on any of these sites.

TIP: Once you connect your sites to Buzz, you can also set the properties of a specific site updates to “Public” or “Private”

Step 3:

Start Interacting. Once you start following people you will see their updates on your timeline like twitter.

There are many ways to interact with a Buzz.

TIP: If you like to see all the Buzz from a specific person. Use the option shown below.

From the right side drop down menu you can:

Email that specific Buzz
Find link to the specific Buzz
View all Buzz from that person
Mute that post so the conversations related to that Buzz will not appear in your Gmail inbox and Timeline
Stop follow that person
Report Abuse

TIP: You might see some Buzz are grouped and look like stacks, click on the stack top area to expand them

Things you can do when you post a Buzz:

Attach a Link
Attach a photo
Set the Buzz to either for everyone or make it private (shared with only selected people)
Add @Reply to a Buzz
Post via email just like Posterous or Blogger. Send an email from your Buzz(y) Gmail with a photo attachment to buzz@gmail.com . It will be posted on your Buzzline.. Owh.. My bad .. I mean Timeline
Do you know you can format your buzz in markup:

And here is the output:

TIP: Here is a topic from Mashable on “HOW TO: Integrate Facebook, Twitter, and Buzz into Your Gmail”
~

Extensions

Google Chrome: Do you know there is a Chrome Extension for Google Buzz called Chrome Buzz. It displays Buzz notifications on Chrome.

Another extension for Google Chrome is Buzzer which allows you to make updates to Google Buzz from Chrome. You need to set up Google Reader to connect it to Buzz.

Firefox: Buzz It! will make a buzz status update via Gmail with the link and title of the webpage you are viewing. It will also shorten URLs with Bit.ly, allowing the user to monitor their link statistics.

Buzz This button

Add Buzz This button to your web site or WordPress post. You can get some beautiful looking Buzz Buttons from Cheth Studios. You can right click and save this button too

Code for Wordpress Posts:

<a href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=<?php the_permalink() ?>&title=<?php the_title () ?>&srcURL=http://www.yourdomain.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow external"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/google-buzz-this-small.png" border="0" title="Submit to Google Buzz" /></a>

Get the Buzz Button WordPress Plugin from ClickOnF5 website.

Alternative Code (JavaScript):

REMINDER: Please update inside the yourdomain.com to your website domain name.

Buzz from your mobile?

Open http://buzz.google.com/ on your phone. Also, you can find Buzz for your mobile devices here.

Hiding/Disabling Buzz

TIP: In case you don’t like to have Buzz in your Gmail, you can turn it off. Scroll down to the Footer of your Gmail, click on “turn off buzz“. That will bring you back to your Gmail without Buzz.

TIP: Create a Filter on your Gmail if you do not like too many conversations in your inbox.

Create a Filter with the word �label:buzz

Select “Skip Inbox” and “Also apply filter to XX conversations“. Click “Create Filter” and you won’t have any Buzz conversations inside inbox.

~
Well, this should at least bring you up to the speed using Google Buzz. I will change and add new tips time to time. I would love to know your own tips too. You can discuss your tips at the comments. On the other hand, why not start a conversation with my Buzz?
I am expecting some other features in Buzz, such as:

Shortening a link of Buzz and post it across other social networks and/or even in ping.fm
Privacy settings
Lists to categorize favorite Buzzes
Distribute a Buzz to a list of people
Star Rating of a Buzz
Buzz polls
Integration with Google Talk desktop application
Integration with AIR clients like TweetDeck, Seesmic
Integration with web clients like HootSuite

Just ideas…. don’t change your channel… more to come.. In the mean time you can Subscribe to my RSS feed to keep yourself Tuned.

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About Ruhani Rabin

Ruhani Rabin is the original owner and author of this blog. He also reviews web 2.0 startups at Tech2all.com. Largely interested in web 2.0 apps & Social Media. Currently the Vice President of MOL Access Portal (MOL is owner of Friendster.com). Also he is Web 2.0 & Social Media Researcher and a Total fun Geek!.. There you have it ;)

Twitter Profile: http://twitter.com/ruhanirabin

greecetour
Thank you for this Information . Good Post . Keep it up .
mohdisa
nice bro, thanks for sharing. i like it, most important is google buzz cause my knowledge in google buzz is very poor. :)
WebpageLottery
Wow, what a complete explanation.
Google buzz is the second most people click on after retweet on my website.
Frank Boros
gr8 google buzz stuff, really informative and interesting mate, cheers...
Data Recovery
hey,it's really a very good help.
sheri
Amazingly useful! Thanks so much, Ruhani.
Kavita
Thankyou for the excellent information about google buzz and maintaining google profile but I was looking for google buzz code for Blogger blog.
gubatron
You should probably break this post into several, very very long post.
Nile Flores
I really have no use for Google Buzz. I left gmail a long time ago and this is something that could have been an integration into Google Wave. Although I see the use, I can just imagine when they go down and people are getting ticked about not being able to access certain areas of Google that they needed.
websitetraffic
Couldn't be more comprehensive than this. Timely and to the point with lot sof useful tips. I appreciate it Rabin.