The Wisdom of Crowds Heard by Google

Today Google posted a response to the tens of millions of Buzz users who provided feedback. This is now a great case study in social media listening.

Google said, "We've heard your feedback loud and clear, and since we launched Google Buzz four days ago, we've been working around the clock to address the concerns you've raised."

They even apologized to users saying, "We're very sorry for the concern we've caused and have been working hard ever since to improve things based on your feedback. We'll continue to do so."

I've checked out Buzz again and I feel much more comfortable with the new controls related to following. The new "suggested" followers feature revealed many members of my Twitter following. I'm busy, so this is convenient. If I re followed all these folks on Buzz I would have a near replica of my current Twitter social circle.  Will I?  It's hard enough to keep up with my Twitter news feed so probably not.

Google has still not invited Facebook to the Buzz party, and the battle for social share wages on. John Battelle has named Facebook the victor, saying in his recent post on Buzz, "Google taking on Facebook for the social graph is akin to Facebook taking on google in web search. IE, silly. Google should incorporate Facebook Connect into Gmail/Buzz asap, and then build on top of it with its powerful services and algorithms. THAT would be a win."

Control Alt Delete

This is not my first post, but it's the one that shall remain in publication. I started blogging several months ago, but my writing, like a good wine, gets better with age. Today I'm starting over, "rebooting" my blog so to speak. Going forward I will build upon the knowledge that I've accumulated over the years studying marketing and working with Fortune 1000 corporations.

First, a bit of background about me. I was born and raised in Missouri, The Show Me State, in the Western suburbs of St. Louis. Like my fellow Midwesterners I have lived my life with a healthy degree of skepticism and follow the advice of my grandfather, Merle, who preached, "don't follow the herd instinct." To that end, in my blog, I will attempt to share insightful and original opinions on the digital media landscape and how brands and companies can build profitable customer relationships leveraging the social web. Thanks for reading and I hope you will share your opinions along the way.