Google Buzz Not a Twitter or Facebook Killer, Says Google Exec

Google Buzz is not a rival to Facebook or Twitter, says Google exec Bradley Horowitz — instead he sees it as a platform for conversation, and hopes other services will be able to flow in and out of Buzz.

In an eWeek interview earlier this week, Horowitz, Google’s VP of product management, was asked whether Buzz was intended as a challenger to Twitter and Facebook. He replied:

“Absolutely not. Per what I just said, this is creating a new category of communication. It’s filling a niche, which is not currently met in the market. I think something unique is happening on Buzz that will continue to evolve. It’s hard to create a trend line or extrapolate too much from six days of use, but certainly conversation and the conversational Web is a place where Buzz has excelled. I think it is unique and offers a compelling interesting experience.”

 

Conversation Is Key

Horowitz also explained that Buzz goes beyond updating your status (like Twitter) or checking in (like Foursquare) — it’s about engagement:

“It’s not just status-casting. It’s not just checking in. It’s really meaningful interactions around meaningful topics within Buzz and it’s reaching the right audience and people are engaged. That kind of value proposition is I think unique to Buzz. I’ve heard that again and again. In the realm of positive feedback, I think that people are finding that the conversational mode of buzz is very, very powerful and the quality of audience is also great.”

 

Buzz: An Open System

Google’s plan, it seems, is to create an open platform for social messaging, such that Google Buzz is integrated with services all around the web. Horowitz aims to create the “most open, well integrated, well behaving social network in the industry.”

This technical openness could create the kind of developer stampede that made Google Maps, Twitter and Flickr take off. The only unknown is whether technical openness could be in opposition to the private nature of our e-mail inboxes.

 

 

[+] Keep Reading

Facebook Analyzes How Relationship Status Impacts Happiness [STATS]

Valentine’s Day, and it apparently had the data team at Facebook thinking: Does being in a relationship (as defined by Facebook relationship status) really make individuals more happy? The results, which are detailed on Facebook’s blog aren’t quite as black and white as you might expect.

Methodology

Facebook already has a methodology for measuring the overall “happiness” of its users. It basically looks at how many positive words people use in their status updates (for English speaking users). This results in the USA Gross National Happiness Index.

For this particular study, Facebook looked at the use of positive and negative words in status messages over the course of one week in January. The data team was then able to filter the results based on sex and relationship status (as defined by Facebook).

The Results

The results aren’t entirely unsurprising: People who are in relationships do seem happier than those who are not in relationships. However, there are some important areas of distinction. For instance, the people that seem the most unhappy are those that either don’t disclose their relationship status or those that are in an open relationship.

An open relationship dwarfs widowers and “it’s complicated” by a pretty significant margin for both men and women. However, those that don’t disclose their relationship at all are about 50% more negative than everyone else.

In the end, while this data is certainly interesting, it’s only scientific insofar as it is a reflection of what people choose to share in their status updates. Obviously, that’s not going to be a strong — or even defining — indicator of how people really feel, regardless of relationship status.

What do you think of this data? Do you find yourself more or less happy when in a relationship as opposed to being single? Let us know!

 

 

[+] Keep Reading