I liked Google Buzz at first, for about 15 minutes.

But when I got to the API, I saw a big red X over its future.

They had to embrace the Twitter API to capitalize on the know-how in the developer community. Google is going it alone. Good luck with that. Maybe it will get uptake, but there's nothing here for me as a developer. I'm even more bored with Buzz after 15 minutes than I am with Twitter after three years.

This comment in yesterday's post sums it up: "Google is a big clunky Microsoft-like company with strategy taxes, and they don't trust the web or developers, or each other, and their internal politics drive most of the decisions they make. To compete with Twitter is an easy sell inside Google, but to actually have the will to be cut-throat about it, that's another thing. It'll probably have to pay homage to Google Wave (remember that?) and therefore will have some elements that are completely incomprehensible. Twitter likely won't get killed, because Google's product will likely fall far-short of what's needed to get us all to think they can be trusted."

I gotta say this -- they aren't even as smart as Microsoft was in its heyday.

PS: I am a Gmail user but I don't want Buzz. How do I get it out of the user interface of Gmail?

PPS: There's a command to turn off Buzz at the bottom of the Gmail UI.

 2/9/2010; 2:01:22 PM.   .

Okay this time they say there really is a snowstorm headed for NYC.

And I'm nestled in my West Village apartment, with almost no food in the fridge, thinking -- "What does this mean to me?"

Last time I was caught in a snowstorm was in Cambridge, MA. I was staying at the luxurious Charles Hotel, after participating in a conference about the future of news put on by Shorenstein Center. I didn't worry about food, I assumed the hotel would take care of it, and I wasn't disappointed. A group of delayed conference-goers ventured into the snow, across the street to the now-defunct Bombay Club restaurant, a favorite, and had a long snowy Indian lunch talking politics and press.

Today, my neighborhood is filled with 24-hour everything. Restaurants, book stores, coffee places. There's a subway station a couple of blocks away, a relatively easy trudge in even the stiffest wind. So I could go eat at the food court under Grand Central Station. No problemmo.

Or... Should I line up at D'Agostino's and fill my cupboards with comfort food?

I think I'll just go about my business and take my chances. ">

PS: I've decided I'm at my best when I'm a newbie.

PPS: Tasks for today: Get on the NYU network. Meet with Josh Young to talk about a NYC media-hacker roundtable.

 2/9/2010; 8:28:28 AM.   .

Yesterday's piece started quite a discussion, and for the most part people agree that it's time for some new stuff in TwitterLand. That tells you that it's not only time, it's past time.

In the past, there would have been a lot of comments about how the limits of Twitter are what make it so perfect. If you still believe that, watch this NSFW puppet "interview" with "Walt Mossberg" and "Steve Jobs." It's hilarious, and shows how the tech industry falls for what puppet Steve calls "an obvious crock of shit." ">

Anyway...

There's more to producing a Twitter-killer than just adding features that Twitter doesn't have.

It has to be a Twitter clone. It has to look and feel like Twitter would, with some or all of these enhancements. Plus, it should also have the ability to post to Twitter and include Twitter content, in other words it should also be a Twitter client. At Microsoft they called this Embrace and Extend.

And one more thing. No Suggested Users List.

 2/9/2010; 7:42:16 AM.   .