If you don’t know what Google realtime search is then you’re not alone, a lot of people don’t. Google’s realtime search is a search engine dedicated to finding information from social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Google Buzz.

I find that this move came at the perfect time for Google. Google has been bringing all of the tools together in one place and making them more “social”, and in order to make these tools more useful they needed to provide a way for users to search through these tools.

The only downside that I see right now is that I am not able to narrow down my search by social media tool. For example: If I want to find all posts about Google from only Google Buzz there is no way to do so at this time.

Overall I love the idea of realtime search and I look forward to seeing any changes that they add to this service.

I am pretty bummed today. It seems that people are trying to get more out of social media then a fun tool to interact with. It seems like they are putting all of their eggs in a basket without learning to actually weave a solid basket, causing all of their eggs to fall out.

What I mean here is that like many others, I do use Twitter, Buzz and other social networks as a way to promote my business, which is actually in it’s simplest form, me helping others. But other people who shall remain nameless take it as a means to an end, and that if it doesn’t work 100% all of the time so that they can just shout and hope for a response they throw a fit. This is what bothers me. Not because something wasn’t working for them (I do feel bad about that) but because they aren’t relaxing and having fun. If something is not working, do not whine and complain saying that it is a waste of time, look for a way to fix it. Too many people in this world take things for granted and then get upset. If we just relaxed and tried to fix our own problems or asked for help then things would be a lot less stressful.

This year I have been trying to make a point to participate in making the web a better place. I know there are a lot of tools and websites out there, and many of us use these on a daily basis, but how often do we notice a bug, or an issue and just move on?

I myself still do this quite often, but I am catching myself doing it and trying to make it a point to correct it.

There are many tools out there that you can use to help notify a website of a particular issue, such as: Google side wiki, forums on their website, contacting the web site owner via email, twitter, facebook, Google Buzz or even calling them on the phone.

If you are a web site owner you should check out my blog postCommunication: A Must For Any Website it will provide you with more in depth reasoning on which tool would work best for you and your web site.

For the websites I work on I make notes of issues or bugs in Evernote. Evernote now makes it possible to easily find all notes that I have made on a particular website using their Evernote Google Chrome extension. Now when I go back to that website I can see all notes that I have made and correct the issues when I have time.

Do you try to help make the web a better place? If so, how?

I’ve been talking about Google Buzz now for a few months and now it is time to take it up a notch. I am organizing a Google Buzz meet up here in Portland Oregon. The meet up will be Saturday, July 24th.

Help promote Google Buzz by getting fellow Buzz users and non-Buzz users together for a chance to meet face to face and talk about the new social media tool.

If you are interested hit me up on Google Buzz or post a comment below.

Hope to see you there!

The Problem – My blog posts and Buzz comments lived on two different worlds:

I found it messy that I would get great comments in Google Buzz that users wouldn’t get while reading on my blog.

Example:

The Solution (Part 1):

At the bottom of each blog post you will now see a new link and icon that says “Buzz Post”. This links to the static Buzz post that gets created as soon as I publish the article on my blog.

Let me know what you think, and be on the look out for the Solution – Part 2 coming soon.

Why is this important you ask?
If you own a website, aren’t you busy writing articles, improving the tools on your site or even thinking of a new design or layout? Sure you are, I know I am. Doing these things are great for your website as they help your company grow in the direction that you want your company to grow, but what about how your users want or need your company to grow for them? How can you connect to your users? How can your users connect with you? How can your users help you out when you make a mistake, there will always be a mistake, no one is perfect.

Some people may say that this is what Facebook, Twitter or Buzz is used for, and to some extent they are right, but do you read every comment, every post on those services? Probably not.

How to let your users communicate with you:
There are many ways that you can get real and honest feedback from your users about your website. Below you will find a few useful tools/methods that I would recommend:

1. Twitter with Hash tags – On your “Contact Us” section of your website add a statement or two to recommend your user to send you a twitter post using some basic has tags.
   • #Bug – Used when your users needs to share a bug on your website
   • #Suggestion – Used when your users wants suggest a new feature, an article or anything else
   • #Help – If your user needs help about something related to your website
   • #Spam – If you allow comments on your website, this will let users help if they spot a spam comment on your website
   • #Critique – If you have a user who wants to vent about your site or just let you know how they feel about a certain feature or article this is the easiest way for them to do so, 140 characters at a time
2. Create a forum on your site which can be found easily such as forum.yourwebsite.com or yourwebsite.com/forum
   • Create 6 categories:
     1. Suggestions
     2. Help
     3. Critique
     4. Bug Report
     5. Spam
     6. Other
3. Encourage your users to use Google Side Wiki
   • Add a link for users to download Google Sidewiki
   • Have a section showing all Google Sidewiki Posts (The good and the bad)
4. Create a comboniation of support methods like TweetDeck – http://support.tweetdeck.com/home

The Goal:
Your users are a great source of inspiration, guidence and they help keep both you and your company honest. Reach out to them and give them the services they want and they will reach out and bring more users to your site.

Global Hotkeys and Misc shortcuts

• Home = Takes me to the beginning of the line in a new post or comment
• End = Takes me to the end of the line in a new post or comment
• Up Arrow = Scrolls up through the page
• Down Arrow = Scrolls down through the page
• F5 – Refresh the page
• Ctrl + F5 = Hard Refresh
• Click the “Buzz” Link to clear all un-read items
• Midle Mouse Button (MMB) = Opens a link into a new tab
• Ctrl + Left Mouse Button (LMB) = Opens a link into a new tab

Built In Gmail Hotkeys using Gmail Labs Feature

• / = Takes me to the top of the page
• / = Takes me to the search box so that I can quickly do a search
• M = Mutes a Post
• Shift + L = Likes a post
• J = Goes to the previous Post
• K = Goes to the next post
• R = Replys to a post
• ? = Lists all of the hotkeys for Gmail and Buzz
• F = Allows me to send a post to my Evernote so that I can either read it later, save it because I find it important

HotKeys using Shortcut Manager

• Ctrl + Alt + b = create a new tab in my browser which takes me directly to Buzz

Image Map for all Hot Keys on the Keyboard

Gestures using Chrome Gestures

• Up = Goes to the top of the page
• Down = Create a new tab
• Left = Last page (back browser button)
• Right = Next page (next browser button)

Quick Links using Gmail Labs Feature

1. author:Andrew Maxwell
2. is:buzz
3. @Andrew Maxwell
4. commentor:Andrew Maxwell
5. “Andrew Maxwell”

Filtering my Buzz posts – This idea was from Marc Thomas)

• Step 1: Look for the subject “Buzz:” (include the quotes)
• Step 2. Have it skip the inbox (this helps if you have a phone that uses push notifcation)
• Step 3. Apple a new label “Buzzz” (This must have 3 Z’s because you can not use “Buzz”)
• Step 4. Make sure you check the box to “Never send it to spam” (This eliminates any chances of missing a post)

My Filter Settings

Buzz in your Inbox

1. Once I like a Buzz post that I was on it will get sent to my gmail Label “Buzzz” and if I want to come back to it again I will Star the item
2. This lets me see if someone has commented after me in a post, sometimes they will mention my name with out @ replying properly
3. This lets me see comments that people have created on my posts, even old posts that I haven’t seen for days or weeks

Organizing my Buzz Contacts

1. Create a group called “Buzz” in your contacts
2. Every time you follow a new person, go into your contacts, find their name
3. Add the users email address
4. Click save
5. Add them to the group “Buzz”

How to @reply someone properly who is not in your contacts (Choice 1)

1. Right click on a users name in a post or comment
2. Copy Link address
3. Type the ‘@’ symbol in a new post or comment
4. Right click right after the @ symbol and paste in the copied URL
5. Remove “http://www.google.com/profiles/” from the beginning of the pasted content
6. Remove “#buzz” from the ending of the pasted comment
7. Add “@gmail.com” right after the users, username
8. Your done!

How to @reply someone properly who is not in your contacts (Choice 2)

1. Midle Mouse Button (MMB) or Ctrl + Left Mouse Button (LMB) on a users name to open a link to their profile into a new tab
2. Copy username from URL string
3. Type the ‘@’ symbol in a new post or comment
4. Paste user name right after the @ symbol
5. Add “@gmail.com” right after the users, username
6. Your done!

Sending a private message the easy way

1. Create a new group in your contacts called “Private Buzz”
2. Now add yourself only to that group

Now when you want to create a private post to someone you just include the “Private Buzz” group and then @ reply to them like you normally would. (This idea was from Michelle Marie)

Links in Evernote of people that I interact with the most

• http://www.google.com/profiles/had3nx#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/Joshua.A.Braun#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/punitsoni#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/ryanitlab#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/abbeyroadgirl#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/finejewels#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/ccuellar#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/svartling#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/nickwaye#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/josh.wills#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/tstrause#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/Jazzyflute#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/denislabel#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/lazarus.anderson#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/loftchris#buzz
• http://www.google.com/profiles/lslawrey#buzz

Sharing from Google Reader

1. Click on your “Sharing Settings” located in the “People you follow” section on the left
2. If you setup your contacts using the “Buzz” group as previously mentioned then this will be easy. Click the check box labeled “Buzz”
3. When you read an article that you like, click the share button at the bottom left of the article
4. If you want to add a comment to this article, then add it right after clicking the “Share” button. A new link will pop up called “Add Comment”. Click the link and it will create a comment on this share into Buzz.

Using Buzz to have people comment on my blog articles

1. Go to your Buzz settings located in your Gmail settings. (A screen shot of mine is below)
2. Go down to the “Your connect sites:” section
3. Click on “View and Edit”
4. If your profile has properly recognized your blog, then it will show it as an option to be added
5. Click on the link at the button that says “Add”
6. Done! Now when you post a new article to your blog, it will automatically post into Buzz

Here are Buzz related articles that I have written about since the launch of Buzz:

• http://www.andrewcmaxwell.com/2010/04/problems-with-google-buzz/
• http://www.andrewcmaxwell.com/2010/05/problems-with-google-buzz-mobile/
• http://www.andrewcmaxwell.com/2010/03/google-buzz-tips-tricks-and-how-tos/
• http://www.andrewcmaxwell.com/2010/04/how-to-save-google-buzz-posts-to-read-later/
• http://www.andrewcmaxwell.com/2010/03/the-proper-way-to-repost-on-google-buzz/
• http://www.andrewcmaxwell.com/2010/04/google-buzz-started-sloppy-but-working-hard-to-change/

In response to the positive feedback that I got from my previous article, from both Buzz users and the Google Buzz Team, I decided to explore the mobile version more and give my opinion on it as well. Below you will find things that I think could be ironed out further to make the mobile version pop.

1. @replying is unknown who it will go to (can we get a popup to allow us to choose?)
2. After making a post the screen pops down a few posts causing confusing to the last post you were on.
3. If someone posts pictures I would like a pop up or a new window to view those images larger
4. There is no way to view the static URL for a post
5. There is no way to mail a post, something similar to google reader mobile would be nice
6. Unable to add an image to a post, what about the option to choose an image from picasa?
7. We need the ability to email using the body of the email and not the subject, that way we could post images on the go.
8. We need more advanced search features, like by date, time, poster name, comment by, has images, from X source
9. Unable to edit posts or comments
10. Hard to copy and paste text
11. We need to be able a time stamp on a comment, a toggle option would the best option.
12. When viewing a new follower there should be a link to go back (I know there is a back button in the browser so this is low on my list)
13. We need a way to view new followers separate from the following tab. This also goes for the main Google Buzz.
14. A way to quickly show users that are following you that are not being followed by you and ones that you are.

These items are in no particular order, they are only numbered so that they can be referenced for easier commenting.

I find that the mobile Buzz version is a little more reliable when viewing unread items and when using it on a regular basis. A big thanks goes out to Punit Soni and the mobile Buzz team for creating a solid mobile version.

Update 8:50am 6/12/10:

• Add the re-share button
• An option in the “Menu” To Show Mentions. It could just be the simple search query of @yourusername@gmail.com
• A map to view all of “My Posts” similar to how Evernote shows your Geo-located posts

Over the past couple of months I have truly fell in love with Google Buzz, which I am sure you are aware of with my previous articles. That being said there is still room for improvements.

Here are some of the issues I see with Google Buzz at this point:

1. It is only available in Gmail accounts. This is great for you and I who have Gmail accounts, but it limits the number of new users because of the barrier of entry.
2. The Buzz count has never really worked properly. Works fine now.
3. Twitter posts come in hours late if at all.
4. Constantly having to click on the “Buzz” link to refresh the page, to get the new/updated content or the remove the unread number.
5. New content does not always come in automatically.
6. There is no “Mark as Read” button, yet it uses “UnRead” for it’s Buzz count.
7. There is no easy way to follow a Buzz user and be able to @reply them.
8. Following a user does not add their email to your contacts, which is what they use for @replying someone.
9. No one really understands grouping and how it works. I would rather see groups based on time than by a single user. For example: I would come in and view Buzz in the morning and I would have a 4 o’ clock group, a 5 o’ clock group etc.  Grouping is now more consistent and works properly. Groups are now labeled to whether they are related by topic  or person.
10. The “load more” button at the bottom of Buzz should allow us to view more Buzz posts. This currently stops at a specific and unknown time or post count. If it will only go back a specific amount then please let us know this amount.
11. Sometimes a muted post will show up in the Buzz stream after the page has been refreshed.
12. Too many unknowns. Some of the features for Buzz are great, but it is unknown how to use them right away. There is no document/help guide to tell you how the “load more” botton works, why posts will show up in your Buzz stream after you have selected to “mute” that item. No one knows how to really get the @reply to work, many Buzz users share this information, hence why I wrote the article Google Buzz: Tips, Tricks and How To’s.

I know the Google Buzz team is hard at work on trying to update/correct some of these issues.

Check out the Google Buzz Moderator forum and let the Google Buzz team know what you find important.

Update 10:24pm 4/29/10: I forgot to include the following items:

• We need to be able to apply filter to specific Buzz users and posts, manually and with rules. This would allow users to organize Buzz into categories so that they can read the more important posts first. Using rules would work exactly as Gmail Rules and Labels.
• We need an advanced search feature to be able to search the following ways: By date, By Poster, By commenter, By topic, By Source (Buzz, Twitter, Reader etc), Has attachment. This needs to be setup like the advanced features on google.com so that we can use the basic search for most things, but clicking a link can bring up the advanced search options.
• Google Buzz needs a live stream that can be found at buzz.google.com which would show the current topics being covered. Basically the same thing as what can be found on the home page for Twitter. You can also show the most talkative people on Buzz as well as the search (with advanced options) this would help people find new users to check out and follow.
• When a blog publishes an update it would be nice if the Buzz post for it would update as well or at least publish a new Buzz post if the previous is not possible.

Update 12:00pm 5/02/10:

• When posting a new Buzz post that includes a link, we need to be able to update the text that it shows. For example: I created a new Buzz post from a Google Spreadsheet web page and it showed up in Buzz as “Welcome to Google Docs” instead of the title of the spreadsheet “Recommended iPod Apps (Grade Levels & Subjects) Escondido Union School District – iRead : 2009-2010″

Update 1:00pm 5/02/10:

• Users are able to mask their Google Buzz username with using their ID instead of a username, however this causes a big problem because you can not @reply someone with their ID. We need the ability to @reply their user ID or a way that users can create custom usernames, separate from their gmail addresses.

Update 3:46pm 5/02/10:

• Adding sites to Google Buzz is strange. Right now you can add websites you belong to on your Google Profile, but in order to have a site post into Buzz you need to login to your Gmail account, go to your Buzz tab and select “View and edit” in the “Your connected sites” section and add the site from there. What would be nice is a new option to “Add to Buzz” from within the Google Profile page.

Update 8:42am 5/04/10:

• Unable to attach multiple photos at a time while choose photos from Picasa.

Update 12:15pm 5/06/10:

• The right click function breaks all of the time while using Buzz. I use this to copy someones username/profile link to get @reply them. This was caused by the gesture feature in Gmail labs. Once I turned it off, it works fine now.

Update 2:45pm 5/09/10:

• Buzz needs a hotkey for liking a post. I think it should be the L if possible, similar to what it is on Google Reader. This would be very useful to some of the more power users of Buzz. The hot key is “Shift + L”

Update 9:25pm 5/11/10:

• When we click on the “X Followers” (replace x with the number of followers that you have) link it shows us a list of the people who are following us. We need to be able to do a search from within this page so that we can see if a certain person is following us or not.
• Make the username window pop-up and not down, when the text box is near the bottom of the screen
• We need the ability for Google Translate tools to translate Buzz. There are a few people that I would like to follow, but I can’t since it is too much work at the moment to translate their posts.
• Mask my username only to unknown, untrusted users. Allow me to share my username with specific people.

Update 1:5pm 5/11/10:

• We need to break out contacts section into 2 groups One for real contacts and one for Buzz contacts Josh Braun said it best on BuzzI feel like Buzz followers and following should be separate altogether from your normal list of email contacts, though with a button or link that makes a person you’re following easy to add to that list. So, your Buzz contacts list could be managed separately, but the Buzz contact card, when you brought it up, would have a link saying “Add to email contacts.” By: Josh Braun – http://www.google.com/profiles/Joshua.A.Braun#buzz
• We need an easier way to assign contact groups in Buzz, I’d also like an easier way to assign contact groups in Buzz. Currently, when I start a new contact group from the Buzz interface for a private post, it gives me my full Google contacts list, which may or may not include the folks I’m following on Buzz. When I use this feature, I’d rather have a complete list of people I’m following/being followed by on Buzz than my email contacts list, which may not contain the people I’m looking for, and/or may contain Gmail contacts who aren’t even on Buzz. By: Josh Braun – http://www.google.com/profiles/Joshua.A.Braun#buzz

Update 2:45pm 5/11/10: – Buzz discussion

• When getting a new follower and clicking on their name, we need to be taken to their user profile and not just viewing their posts. This would also be the same case for clicking on any buzz users name. This should also open in a new tab and not in the same window or embedded within buzz.When we have a new follower we are able to click their name to get an overview about what they post. Currently this page does not really tell you anything about the person. For example if a user is an active commentor but not an active poster it would be nice to have a way to see that rather than just looking through their post. I would rather be taken to their user profile then this sublet page where it only shows me their posts. This would make it possible for people to let others know that they are not active posters but are very active when it comes to commenting, as well as eliminating two pieces of code that Google would have to manage.

Update 9:00am 5/12/10: – Buzz discussion

• A menu that would pop up when you click on a users name. In the menu it should have “reply, view profile, block, send private message

Update 9:00pm 5/12/10: – Buzz discussion

• The drop down when @replying someone should update to have the most used contact be at the top of the list and descend – This is now how it is setup.
• When receiving emails from Buzz, the Buzz emails should be “marked as read” if the item has been read in the Buzz stream.

Update 10:50am 5/14/10:

• After muting a post we still need to get @reply updates when someone mentions my name using an @reply

Update 8:20pm 5/15/10: – Buzz Discussion

• Uninformative RSS feeds and post titles. Simply put, the titles of RSS items coming from Buzz are completely uninformative. The title of a Buzz feed is simply “Google Buzz” with no indication as to who it comes from. Items all read “Buzz by User” with no indication as to what the post is about. Buzz posts don’t have headlines, but even a title consisting of the first characters of the post would greatly improve things here. Similarly, the page titles of permalinked Buzz posts don’t tell you anything about their content. Prospective readers encountering Buzz posts through RSS feeds or shared links on different social media services are not likely to click through when the title gives no information about the post. -Buzz Discussion By: Josh Braun – http://www.google.com/profiles/Joshua.A.Braun#buzz
• Body text of posts disappears when viewed from public profile pages. Some posts with multiple attached links don’t display correctly when viewed from a public profile page. The links and comments appear, but the body text does not.-Buzz Discussion By: Josh Braun – http://www.google.com/profiles/Joshua.A.Braun#buzz
• Embedded audio files don’t play. Google’s fantastic embedded MP3 player makes it possible to share audio right here on the site. But the player stopped working awhile ago. There’s no sound and the player itself changes to a black bar as soon as you click play.-Buzz Discussion By: Josh Braun – http://www.google.com/profiles/Joshua.A.Braun#buzz
• Mute updates from user ( stops you from getting updates from this user for a specific post)
• Mute/block user (this stops all @replys from them coming to you)
• we need the hover ability that is now located on the permalink for each post – http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Rrr6BeuAZuBaLDnZKO4I4g?feat=directlink
• We need to be able to see the map view and list view on the same window in the browser, this would give us a nice alternative view to find local posts easier. Pulling the two different pages from the mobile version

Update 10:55am 5/21/10:

• A tagging system which can be added to any Buzz post, similar to hash tags for Twitter. This would mark specific posts as, #check-in, #Games, #Google Reader, #Twitter, #Facebook. Once these Buzz posts have a hash tag, then it would make it easy to weed out posts related to a specific topic, like games, or twitter etc.
• Allow me to paste in a long URL into buzz and give me the option to auto shrink the URL using gog.le URL shortner and/or be able to to change the link text
• Contact groups need to function when @replying to a group in a public post. When I create a contacts group, I would love it if Buzz would read these properly so that I can @ reply the group and everyone in that group gets the message properly. Currently is shows their name and email and name in a ugly manner. Example: @”Person1″ , “Person2″ , “Person3″
  

  From Web Posts

• I would love a way to add an RSS feed to my profile so that my blog posts can show up in a tab like my buzz and side wiki posts

Update 11:50am 5/27/10:

• Google Buzz adds the re-share button
• A setting to receive reshare updates, letting you know every time someone reshares and article. This setting should be in the Buzz settings found in Gmail

If you use Google Buzz right now you will notice that there is no Star feature like there is in Gmail or a way to save a post to read later. Well I found a simple solution using Evernote.

Steps in Evernote:
Step 1. – Make sure you have your custom Evernote email address address turned on and saved in your Gmail Contacts. It will look something like this username.efkgw1@m.evernote.com
Step 2. – Create a new notebook in Evernote called “Buzz”.

Steps in Google Buzz:
Step 1. – Find a Buzz post that you like, or one that you would like to read later.
Step 2. – Click on the “Email” link under the post to open the Email editor.
Step 3. – Enter your custom Evernote email address into the “To” field.
Step 4. – In the subject line include “@Buzz” after the subject of the post don’t include the quotes
Step 5. – Make any notes that you want regarding the post (if any)
Step 6. - Click the “Send” button

Finished. – Your done. Now you’re able to come back and look at the Google Buzz post when it is convenient for you.