That other thing.

Buzz summary:
Okay, in a little over two weeks I've made 62 posts to Buzz. That's over a quarter of my entire blog posting (208) over 2.5 years. So... what the hell is all that? Well, predictably, it's what would normally be sinking into the bog that is my bookmark file. Maybe a fraction could have made it into the blog in a good week, maybe none of it.
Now, instead, I can post just up to (and slightly beyond) the limit before it starts to feel like it's just torturing my contact list. If I didn't feel self conscious about it, I could see easily doubling the rate. This is dangerously easy, fun, and rewarding.
Now part of that inflation is that, in micro-blogging, I'm freed from a lot of constraints that I've worked in over the years that keep me from posting more regularly. Over time, it became so that I didn't really feel comfortable posting here without having a "strong" piece of text, at least a half dozen great found or original images, and one to five videos. And it's very easy for mediocre text to torpedo a post from ever appearing. It may not seem like it, based on word count, but I often hate my own writing. "God, I sound like a complete jerk," I think, after a majority of paragraphs or essays get canned.
What Buzz enables me to do is to post anything that comes along. A link, a video, an image, an animated gif (finally!), a quick snippet of text. I can dash a Buzz post off in 1-5 minutes. At most, 20. A typical, fully featured blog post takes 3-4 hours.

All the tech journalists and boring bloggers are trying to pin down exactly which services Buzz mirrors, and whether it does so more or less favorably. I tried to give a fuck about this. I really did. I made notes, even. But when DJOE & I attempted to discuss it, it just didn't feel that interesting. What it looks like, structurally... it's hard to see how it matters. It's all in how people work in it. Right now, in its complete infancy, while most people seem to be either completely ignoring it or just warily prodding at it, I found a tool that does exactly what I was craving to do. Something really fun that I'd kept myself from doing here; turning something into a complete, chaotic, carnivalesque toxic waste dump. Utterly ridiculous, almost profane (that's still reserved for here), and totally stupid.

As a diligent little McLuhanite disciple I should care much more about its form and characteristics. Maybe it's just how quiet it currently seems, and how isolated you can feel from inside.

The analogy that's formed in my head is that the blog is a remote mountain cabin. You can get there, but it's a pain, and it's mostly not worth it, unless you've made the trip a few times and have come to like the place.

Buzz is like setting up a card table on the sidewalk on an Avenue and just shuffling, pattering, bullshitting. Currently, though, no one's got a phone, and you can't step very far from your table. You have no idea who's at the table down the Avenue.


I've been wanting to write some grand Buzz summarization, but I don't think it will ever happen. I'm too wrapped up and sucked in to be objective or analytic. A content list is nearly impossible. (If I were to try, I'd say the best Youtube videos I've ever seen or reposted, the best low-res and ridiculous internet art I've found, a ton of interesting articles, essays, and audio links, a dash of highbrow on a mountain of near total stupefaction, low-pressure book & film discussion, and whatever else seems remotely possible or tolerable.)

The TLDR version: it's worth it to sign up for a Gmail account if for no other reason than to participate rather than observe. You can even be partially present, and feed the services you're already utilizing into it (like Reader, Twitter, status updates, blogging, Flickr) although I think your content won't be as good as natively produced content, which is maybe partly by design, and partly a by-product of the existing services (like Twitter) being such useless piles of garbage. Still... there's no reason why someone can't prove me wrong. (Actually, I can think of at least two people that already do.)

Maybe this is Web 3.0. Filtered content, and a gradual shift into a realm where not sharing your constant stream of treasures is almost treasonously selfish.

That sounds pretty great.

The downside, of course, like anything internet related, is that when you get your content filtered, and the quality skyrockets... it's really easy to get dangerously addicted.

Dang.