Google Buzz Widget for Android is Essentially Write-Only – Kind of Useless

I use a lot of Google products including a pair of Android based phones. But, two recent products have left me puzzled: Wave and Buzz. Wave is, well, I can’t figure out what it is or how to use it in any practical way. Google Wave seems dead from my point of view. No one in my list of Wave contacts has used it since November 2009. Buzz is sort of like Twitter buy tied to Gmail and was initially extremely invasive in its loose use of Gmail contacts and privacy. I haven’t found a use for Buzz either. But, I do find it more interesting than Wave since Buzz seems to have a passing resemblance to Twitter.

Google announced a new Buzz tool for Android yesterday:

Introducing Google Buzz widget for Android

So, I installed it on my Droid and tried it out. An Android Widget is usually a single purpose applet that is placed on an Android home screen. The Buzz widget lets you post something from an Android device to Buzz. I used it to post both a simple text message as well as a photo accompanied by text. Here’s the funny thing though: It is essentially a one-way process. The widget posts a message to Buzz but does not display it. There is an option to launch a browser to see the post. However, the post did not appear on my Droid’s screen even after refreshing it. I used a desktop computer to verify that both messages had, in fact, appeared on Buzz. But, for the most part, the Buzz Widget is a write-only process. In other words, it is not very interesting.

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