40Tech

Google Buzz is going the way of the dinosaur — or maybe the Dodo is a better analogy. Either way, as of November 14th, the hopeful attempt at getting in on some of that Twitter juice will simply fade away. Google’s on to bigger things now — like trying to get a piece of that Facebook pie, with some Twitter a la mode. Sounds nummy, right? Or maybe I’m just getting hungry…

If you have invested yourself into Google+ at all, you will be happy to know that, whether you stick with the service or not, there is an easy way to get a copy of all of your data (profile, contacts and circles, your stream, Picasa pics — even Buzz and +1s). It’s called Takeout, and it’s built right into your Google+ settings as a part of Google’s “Data Liberation Front.”

There’s no tricks to it, no caveats, and no amount of hacking genius required. It’s all a matter of a few points and clicks and a bit of hard drive space. Here’s how to do it:

If you are overwhelmed by the multitude of services you are a part of and need to maintain, Cliqset may be the definitive service for you. Originally thought to be a slightly prettier FriendFeed clone, the service has taken big strides in the past eight months. With over 80 connected services, including deep integrations with Evernote, Twitter, Foursquare, and yes, even Google Buzz, Cliqset is well on its way to becoming your social media command centre.

For those of you who are still interested in Google Buzz, or at least think it’s a good idea that’s still in progress, late last month the always busy bees over at Google released the 16th feature update (in as many weeks) to the Google Buzz platform: the Reshare button. The ability to re-share a post from someone you follow, thereby easily spreading the information to your own network has been a much-requested feature from users since the launch of Google Buzz — and they made it very easy and surprisingly effective.

About a month or so ago, I came across a few articles about Salmon Protocol – an open protocol that allows for communication beyond the confines of social networks; as well as a centralized conversation that brings comments from everywhere home to their source. Imagine, if you will, being able to communicate with people on Facebook from Twitter, or on MySpace from Facebook – and without having to join multiple networks. Wouldn’t that just make life peachy? Or maybe you are a blogger and would like to know about conversations that have sprung up around your post on the various social networks out there. Salmon Protocol plans to take you there – and may well be the future of the web…

We have one question for you right off the bat- how many of you are still using Google Wave or Google Buzz?  Have both services flopped?  Back in August, we wrote about 3 reasons why Wave wouldn’t flop.  Has it?  What about Buzz? My personal take on Buzz and Wave is that  Buzz is a [...]

Google Buzz is Google’s latest foray into social media.  Buzz seems to borrow some elements from Twitter, a few from Facebook, and even some from FriendFeed.  Like most new products, though, Buzz isn’t perfect.  Many users have expressed their opinions on ways to improve Buzz, and we’re no different.  Here are 5 ways we think [...]