As you may already know, Google has recently launched something called Google Buzz. In this post I will be telling you more about Google Buzz and I will also be sharing my opinions on the service.

How is Google Buzz different?

In my opinion, Buzz is not a copy of Facebook, nor is it a copy of Twittr. Buzz is simply in-between. It is not as complicated as facebook, but is also not as simple as twitter. What makes it different than Twitter is the fact that Buzz lets you comment on other peoples updates and it also lets you upload photos. You man say that Twitter does let you upload photos, but it doesn’t. Twitter only lets you post links to photos and has no native way to attach photos. The only way to post a photo in Twitter is to use a service like Twitic or yfrog. Also, Twitter does not let you comment on other people’s updates. The closest thing to commenting on an update is @replying somebody.  The bad thing about an @reply is that it is not connected to a specific tweet, so things can get a little confusing when you are receiving many @replies.

What does Buzz do?

I think Google does it best when describing Google Buzz. Here’s a short video about Buzz:

What do I think about Buzz?

Buzz will not replace Facebook and is far from replacing Twitter. I look forward to seeing how the community uses Buzz and what future changes Google will make to it in the future. After taking some time to use Google Buzz and testing it out, one of its biggest flaws is the fact that whenever somebody comments on your update, Google automatically Emails you. I hope that in the future, Google will give you the option to turn the Email updates off because after a while they get annoying.

You can follow me on Buzz here. You can also read Google’s blog post on Google Buzz here.

What do you think?

What do you think about Google Buzz? Have you gotten the chance to try it out yet? If so, do you like it?

This is a guest post by RJ:

Ever wanted to be able to Google 4 things at once? Well now you can at googlegooglegooglegoogle.com.

googlegooglegooglegoogle.com is split into 4 frames all with the Google search engine which allows you to search Google simultaneously all within the one window. Each frame is linked to “Google.com”. Which means it has all the options you would get on “Google.com” such as quick links to Web, Images, Videos etc. and the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. Above each frame you do get the option to search “Google.com” and “Wikipedia.com”; Also the option to close this Google-Frame and Go To a New URL. Since the frames are minimal size and not large enough to view the whole web page at once you do get the two scroll bars. One scroll bar is on the right of the frame (Up and Down) and the other on the bottom of the frame (Left and Right).

With the Go To a New URL Feature you can go to any website. Which means you can be on 4 websites all in the same window!

A Menu at the left bottom corner allows you to take more advantage of googlegooglegooglegoogle.com.

Menu Options:

Restore Closed Google: Allows you to restore a closed Frame

Set Pages to Open on Start up: Allows you to set the URL in each frame and it will open that frame as default when going to googlegooglegooglegoogle.com

Always Givoogle x 4: Tells you to bookmark googlegooglegooglegoogle.com to always see 4 Google frames and to be a better person.

Big List of Other Google’s: Gives you a list of alternate Google search engines.

Google x 4: Gives you larger (wider) frames

Side-by-side Search: gives you 2 large frame allowing you to search the web side by side.

Pros:

1. Allows you to go to 4 URL’s in the same window

2. Fast and effective

3. Perfect for comparing photo’s side by side, watching multiple videos etc.

Cons:

1. They have a 2 frame and a 4 frame search so a 3 frame search would be a nice add on.

2. Don’t have any more. This is a great.

Search Google in a whole new way now:

Thanks to the Creators of googlegooglegooglegoogle.com: Erty and Alex.

UPDATE 1/18: http://googlegooglegooglegoogle.com has been shutdown and moved to http://www.alotofinternet.com/ [Update by Colby Aley]

Gboard is simply a mini keyboard for Gmail users. What it does is gives you 19 “finger-friendly buttons” that you can use to navigate around Gmail.

The Good:

• Simple
• Useful
• Plug-n-play

The Bad:

• Short USB cable
• Does not include all the Gmail keyboard shortcuts

My Rating:

4.5/5 stars.

The bottom line:

Gboard is a simple yet convenient piece of hardware, good for any Gmail user that has $18 to spare.

More info:

To go to Gboard’s website, Click Here

Google, today announced a free (keyword: free) GPS navigation system for Android 2.0. The first phone to have GPS Navigation will be the Motorola Droid for Verizion which will run you at $199.99 with a $100 Mail-in rebate. The Motorola droid will launch on November 6th.
Here is a video explaining Google Maps Navigation:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGXK4jKN_jY]
Will Google Come out with something like this for the iPhone? Will this make you switch to Android? What do you think?

Out with the days of having to acquire a new phone number just to be able to use Google Voice. Google has posted to their blog that if you are willing to lose a few features of the full-on Google Voice you can now use a “Lite” version of Google Voice with your existing phone number.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua9Q5frlQ2M]

What do you think? Will this pull you in closer to using google voice? If you don’t have a Google Voice account, leave a comment and I’ll try to hook you up with an invite…

Google is showing off a new Google Street View Trike to go places that the Street View car can’t go.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr-4Aln1Il8]

For some examples of places that the Google Street View Trike has been and to suggest new places for it to go Click Here.

What’s next? A Google Street View hat to go places the trike can’t?

Here is a video that I found on YouTube simply telling people about Google Wave. It’s really cool:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDu2A3WzQpo]

Lately, Google Wave has been all the hype and has continuously been a trending topic on Twitter. I am going to tell you everything you need to know about Google Wave so you too can join the conversation.

Google is claiming that Google Wave is the next big thing. It seems like with Google Wave Google is trying to reinvent email which makes me wonder how Google Wave will turn out.

So what is Google Wave? Google Wave is a place on the internet, sort of like Gmail where you can have conversations with people. Unlike Gmail, Google Wave is all in real time. Google Wave also lets you use other websites and services right from your Google Wave page. For example, you can tweet and read other peoples tweets right from Wave.

Right now, Wave is invitation only but Google is probably going to open it up to the public soon.

Here is a short video by Google about Wave:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6pgxLaDdQw]

So what do you think about Google Wave? Are you going to try it out when it comes available? If anyone has any invitations to give out I would certainly love one so I could test wave and do a review!

[polldaddy poll=2068478]

Google has announced on the official Gmail blog that push Gmail is going to now be supported in Gmail Sync for iPhone and WinMo. Google Sync is still in beta and so there are going to be bugs. I have tested the mail sync on my iPhone and it is not even loading my mail correctly so I switched back to IMAP until the bugs clear up. I still sync my contacts and calendar on my iPhone with Google Sync and it is working great. I am going to be waiting a day or  two then i will try push Gmail again.

What do you think? Is push Gmail working for you?

UPDATE: Push Gmail is now working great on my iPhone.

By: Colby Aley

If you got the, “The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.” message when visiting Gmail or Google Apps you are not alone. Gmail has been down for the past few minutes and “Gmail” is now a trending topic on Twitter, as of 1:18PM PST. As gmail is what I use for both my work email and my personal email, I am not happy that I am unable to access it.

Do you use Gmail? Are you mad that Gmail is down?

UPDATE: As of 1:27PM PST “Gmail” is the #1 trending topic on Twitter!

UPDATE: It turns out that Gmail can still be accessed from iGoogle!

UPDATE: Google has posted on their Twitter account: “We’re aware that people are having trouble accessing Gmail. We’re working on fixing it. Apologies for the inconvenience”

UPDATE: POP and IMAP for Gmail seem to be working fine!

UPDATE: As of 2:16PM PDT Gmail seems to be working for me but it is painfully slow..

UPDATE: Gmail posted to the Official Gmail Blog:

“We know many of you are having trouble accessing Gmail right now — we are too, and we definitely feel your pain. We don’t usually post about minor issues here (the Apps status dashboard and the Gmail Help Center are usually where this kind of information goes). Because this is impacting so many of you, we wanted to let you know we’re currently looking into the issue and hope to have more info to share here shortly. If you have IMAP orPOP set up already, you should be able to access your mail that way in the meantime. We’re terribly sorry for the inconvenience and will get Gmail back up and running as soon as possible.”

UPDATE: Gmail seems to be working fine for me! All fixed!

UPDATE: Google apologizes and explains the problem with a post on the Official Gmail Blog