I’ve been dipping in to Google Buzz evey day or so since it was released, and so far I really like it.

Like it enough to say that I can’t see myself using Twitter anymore, and suspect Twitter has hit a wall in terms of growth.

Things I like about it:

• Conversations are persistant, not fleeting
• Integrated into Gmail, which I usually have open
• Easy to take a Buzz conversation private into email, or to fire off a Google Talk session
• No 140 character limit!

The last one, the 140-character thing, is a bigger deal than I thought it would be. After using Buzz, I’ve realised how stilted, unnatural, and uncomfortable it is to communicate in single sentences through Twitter. Twitter is great for blasting out short snippets to nobody in particular, but as a medium for conversation it’s pretty ineffective.

I’ve watched posts made to both Twitter and Buzz, and there is no doubt in my mind that the response from Buzz is of a higher quality.

Here’s a great example of the return to the lost art of conversations with strangers on the Net -a Buzz thread started by a Twitter post made by Clay Shirky

In the thread, Clay responds to one of his commenters, prompting the following comment:

Wow, this thread is so different from anything you’d ever encounter on Twitter or FB. Kind of feels like the early days of the internet in a weird way: everyone in a chat room talking to people they don’t know about lofty things, in long paragraphs. Who does that on the web any more?

The comment encapsulated the feel completely – it’s taken us this long to get back to the immediacy and spirit of old tools like IRC!

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“What we need is journalism”

I don’t usually simply link out to other blog posts, but in this case I feel compelled to link to Clay Shirky‘s extremely perceptive post entitled Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable.

He manages to post very well thought out explorations of unresolved questions and issues presented by the impact of the internet on old industries and models. If you haven’t seen his writing on micro-payments, it’s worth Googling.

Go read it for more choice quotes like this – “The expense of printing created an environment where Wal-Mart was willing to subsidize the Baghdad bureau.”

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