Check It, Bro » twitter http://www.checkitbro.com Wed, 11 May 2011 02:25:13 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Google Buzz http://www.checkitbro.com/2010/02/google-buzz/ http://www.checkitbro.com/2010/02/google-buzz/#comments Sat, 13 Feb 2010 03:23:17 +0000 Josh http://www.checkitbro.com/?p=78 You probably don’t need Google Buzz, but so what? Unlike most new social media applications, Buzz is not a train wreck from the get-go, it integrates well with other applications and platforms, and if you already use Google, you’ll find even more integration to satisfy your lifestream piping needs.

There aren’t many sides to social media these days. The small times chore of updating several sites and processes is mostly gone, and most things pipe into and / or out of Twitter as a main conduit for social engagement. The single point-of-contact and flowthrough and update filtering reached a pinnacle web-wise with ping.fm, and many apps serve a similar if lesser functionality. Unlike most of those apps, Buzz’s UI is slick and easy, and rather than trying to do a lot of the heavy lifting of sharing content with interested parties, it lets other services handle that burden and it does so very well.

However, as a reward for plugging Google into every hole you have (and also as a byproduct of Google owning or affiliating with so many services and apps so hard), Buzz allows you to plug plenty of things into it, with Facebook being the only really huge one left out. You can run plenty of things from source to Buzz, including Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. This means that if you use Twitter as your upfront trigger for updating other things (like Twitter to Facebook, Twitter to LinkedIn, etc) then Buzz will open up your other services for consumption by Google Buzz users.

This also means that things you use to send updates to Twitter – like Blip.FM or TwitPic or Tumblr – will pass through to Buzz as well. Since I’m narcissistic and use social media in part to promote my own bullshit, I love this side of it.

I like that Buzz doesn’t automatically update other things and instead just accepts input from other services, because it allows me to be more selective about who sees what. I have some specific interpals that seem to be doing a lot of interacting on Buzz, so by arranging some specific groups in my Google Contact List I can granularly control the kinds of hilarious lols I kick out. It helps that the other part of social networking is what the Web 3.0 nerds call “Mad Bullshitting” and that I really enjoy talking to my friends and sharing stuff on the internet, and Buzz makes that easy to do, with plenty of intuitive controls and well-thought out integration.

Score

If you like social networking jiggery, Buzz is pretty good. If you have been waiting to get more Google chocolate in your social peanut butter, Buzz is awesome. For the things it does right, and what I hope to see from it in the near future, Google Buzz gets 4 Chans out of 5.

]]> http://www.checkitbro.com/2010/02/google-buzz/feed/ 0 New Orleans Saints Analogies http://www.checkitbro.com/2010/02/new-orleans-saints-analogies/ http://www.checkitbro.com/2010/02/new-orleans-saints-analogies/#comments Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:33:47 +0000 Josh http://www.checkitbro.com/?p=69 You are not the New Orleans Saints.

Your mother, your political party, your kids’ baseball team, the economy, Toyota, your cousin’s chances of beating the assault rap, Snoop Dogg, Google, and Dominos Pizza are also not the New Orleans Saints.

If you are running for office and you’ve compared yourself to the New Orleans Saints, you deserve to lose and be trod in penury and disgrace.

Score

The trend gets 0 out of 5.

]]> http://www.checkitbro.com/2010/02/new-orleans-saints-analogies/feed/ 1