Buzzing, Tweeting and Carping

Inconsistencies and poor design choices are everywhere. For example, a new message can be Public or Private (addressed to one particular Buzzer). But you don’t have that choice when you’re responding to a post — only when you’re creating a new one.

Meanwhile, Google committed a kindergarten-level design gaffe when it put the Public and Private choices in a pop-up menu. If there are only two choices, why not make them both visible as buttons?

Sometimes, back-and-forths about a certain topic appear like the script of a play. At other times, they appear as they do in Gmail — as a collapsed set of file-folder tabs. Google says that there’s an algorithm that determines which look you get, but from your perspective, it’s just inconsistent.

Google’s recommendation system, meanwhile, tries to help you sort through the tidal wave of conversation by automatically promoting or hiding messages according to what it thinks you’ll find useful. So you may suddenly start getting messages from people you’re not actually following (because people you are following have liked it or commented on it).

Conversely, messages that Google thinks aren’t that interesting get dumped at the bottom of the page, collapsed into tabs. Unfortunately, they may include messages from your boss, best friend or lover. There’s no way to tell Buzz, “Never treat my wife that way.”

You can also do Buzz from your iPhone or Android phone (just not from regular cellphones; no length limit means no Buzzing by text message). Since these GPS phones know where you are, you can tap Nearby, and see other Buzz members on a map to see where they’re standing. (Of course, they can also see you, which is a little creepy; you can turn off this feature if you like.)

On an Android phone, like the Motorola Droid or the Nexus One, you can even see what people are saying about a particular store or restaurant that’s right across the street from you. That feature has big potential.

Then again, the whole Buzz-on-phone thing spells even more confusion. There are three different ways to get at Buzz — from buzz.google.com, Google.com, or the Google Maps app for Android — each with a different set of features. “There’s opportunity for us to improve that,” concedes a product manager.

He’s not kidding. True, at this point, you spend a disproportionate amount of your Buzz time absolutely baffled. But remember, it’s a Web site. It can be improved at any time — and Google has been making changes at an astonishing pace, even in its first week of operation. The company agrees with almost all of the criticisms you’ve just read, and says that it will address them soon.

Funny, isn’t it? It’s a running joke that Google labels many of its services as “beta” (meaning “in testing”) — and leaves that label in place for years. And here’s Buzz, a truly beta product that isn’t labeled that way.

Buzz probably won’t make much of a dent in Facebook or Twitter or FriendFeed. But because it’s nicely integrated with Gmail and Google chat, because it has powerful and flexible features and because millions of Gmail members can get in with a single click, Buzz will have its own following. In other words, its complex design is a challenge that Google will have to overcome — but it’s not enough to be a Buzzkill.

David Pogue is a columnist for the New York Times and contributor to CNBC. He can be emailed at: .