Google buzz is a communication and social networking tool tightly integrated into Gmail. It allows users to share (publicly or privately) information or media from sites like Picasa, Flickr, and YouTube. Used on a PC or mobile, buzz allows users to post buzzes to their buzz feed. These buzzes appear to anyone who is following that particular user, as well as in search results if they are public. Buzz also works on mobile phones using information about a user’s location to tailor their feed with information about things like businesses, restaurants and even friends that are buzzing near by. Once a user posts a public buzz, anyone can view it and respond to it. All responses are threaded like a discussion forum, unlike twitter where responses are not listed under each tweet. Buzz also connects with sites like Youtube, Twitter, Blogger, and Flickr allowing users to create posts on buzz directly from within these sites.

Signing Up to Google Buzz
For Non-Gmail Users
- Point your web browsers to Gmail.com
- Click on “Sign Up”. Enter all of your information
- Click on “Show me my Account”. You will then be directed to a Buzz page.
- Click on “Sweet Check out Buzz!”
- You will be shown a buzz video intro. After viewing that, click on “Get started with Buzz”.
Thats it. You are now a Buzz User.

For Existing Gmail Users
- Existing Gmail Users should notice Buzz in their existing Gmail Inbox.
- If Buzz is not being displayed in Gmail go to http://buzz.google.com
- Click “Try Buzz in Gmail”
- You may be required to enter your login information if you aren’t already logged in.
- You will be automatically redirected to your Gmail Account where you will see a link to Buzz below the Inbox link.
That’s it. You are now a buzz User. The next step will be to create a buzz Profile.

Creating a Buzz Profile
- Point your web browser to: http://www.google.com/profiles/me – this is your current profile.
- You will see a message that says “Your profile is not yet eligible to be featured in Google search results”. This mean you have to add more information to your profile.
- Click on “Add more info to my profile”.
- Simply fill out as much information as you can. Add an image if you would like, and add links to your websites if you have any.
- Click the check box next to “Your profile URL is http://www.google.com/profiles/xxxxxx” if you would like your username to be shown in your static buzz profile URL. NOTE: This could be dangerous if you don’t like spam, since spammers will be able to tell what your email address is from looking at your profile.
- Click on “Save changes”.
Your Buzz profile is now completed. Now you are ready to begin posting buzzes.

How To Add More Connected Sites
-First, make sure you have added the site you wish to add to buzz to your Google Profile.
- Go to http://www.google.com/profiles/(yourusername). On the top right of the screen you will see ‘Edit Profile’, click on it and scroll towards the bottom of the page. There you will see a place to Add Links, simply type in the URL you would like to add. Google also shows you how to add a special markup (rel=”me”) that offers more information about the link, ie: it’s a profile page.
- In Posterous, go to manage, click on your account, and then scroll down to the Bio box. Just add the above markup string there.
- Google will not let you connect to the site immediately, but needs to ‘crawl’ the site.

Keyboard Shortcuts in Buzz
- First, make sure you turn on keyboard shortcuts by logging into gmail and clicking on “Settings” at the top of your browser window. Then click on “Keyboard shortcuts on” in the Keyboard Shortcuts section.
- Now that your shortcuts are on, here are the buzz shortcuts:
*G B – From any Gmail view to open Google buzz
*Shift+L – Like or unlike a message
*J – Moves to the next share
*K – Moves back to the previous share
*M – Mutes a buzz
*R – Adds a comment
*P/N or J/K – Go to the newer or older conversation
*O – Expand the conversation
*Shift +? – Brings up all Google keyboard shortcuts

Turning Google Buzz Off
If you are one of those people that don’t want any part of Google Buzz, there is good news. You can turn buzz off simply by going to the bottom of the page when in buzz or gmail. You will see a link that says “turn off buzz”. Just click that and you have erased buzz from your account!

How to turn off Email Notifications
This is an issues that a lot of people have to deal with. Google buzz is in your gmail account, so Google integrated it into your inbox in some ways. When you respond to a buzz, or create a buzz of your own, google sends you email updates every time someone responds to that buzz. To disable this, you can do the following
- Click on “Settings”.
- Click on “Filters” tab.
- Click on “Create Filter”
- Type “is:buzz” in the “Has the words” field and click “next”
- Check “skip the inbox” and then click “Create filter”

Following and being followed on buzz
Getting Followers on buzz or following interesting people is a good starting point, given that many people find themselves in front of their computers looking at their buzz profile and thinking, “what now?”

On the main buzz window there are 3 menus : following – find people – refresh. By clicking “find people” one can search for buzz users and will also automatically get suggestions of people they might want to follow. The easiest way to get started is by following one person, then browsing through that person´s follower list and choosing those profiles you find interesting. You can then follow them as well.

Find Buzz Users that You Already Follow on Twitter
There is a site called Tw2buzz that allows you to login using your Twitter account and it populates a list of people that you follow on Twitter that are also on Google buzz.
-Go to http://tw2buzz.com/ and Log in via Twitter
-Allow the program to find your Twitter contact list and scan the web to see which users also have a Google buzz account
-Click on each name that you want to connect to on buzz. Click on the Follow button which will be located in a pop up window.

Unfortunately there is not way to add all the contacts at once. They are working on getting this feature once buzz has the proper API set up. In the meantime, you can follow Tw2buzz for updates on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tw2buzz

Posting and Sharing With Buzz
At the top of your Buzz stream there is an entry box.
- To share text, simply type what you wish. You can share other sorts of media as well, including links, images, and videos, however the buzz system does not always automatically recognize these.
- To share your posts and uploads at Flickr, Twitter, and other popular social streams, all you have to do is click on the “connected sites” link at top of the entry box in Buzz. You can then select the sites to connect with, and enter your details. Once connected these sites will post to Buzz whenever you leave an update.
- You can also share things from an RSS feed of one of your sites. To do this, just follow the 4 simple steps outlined here:
http://www.google.com/buzz/bradfitz/PPjHXDhANAC/Want-to-connect-your-blog-or-some-other-feed-to

Create Saved Searches in Buzz
If you ever wanted to monitor your own reputation or any other search query, you can do so in buzz just as in twitter. For example, maybe you would like to keep track of what fellow buzzers are saying about the new “Alice in Wonderland” movie. You can do that, or you can create a search for your own name, brand, or website to keep track of what buzz users are saying about you.

1. First of all, you have to know that buzz is searchable. Once inside buzz, if you look at the top of the screen you will see that your search box changed from “search mail” to “search buzz”. Here is where you would enter your search enquiry.
2. The first thing to do to create saved searches is to enable “quick links” in your gmail. To do this:
A: Go to settings and click on Google Labs.
B: Scroll down until you see “quick links” and enable it.
This will put a box below your labels entitled “quick links”
3. Now, go back into your buzz and type in your search query. For instance: “Lady Gaga”.
4. Click “Add quick link” in your newly created “quick link” box.
This will create a bookmark with the saved search query right there in your “quick links” box.

The advantage of doing this is so that you can have frequently searched queries one click away. This means that you don’t have to remember, don’t have to retype, and can keep track of your searches on a a regular basis. This is also a fantastic way of finding new buzz users to follow.

Search Tips
1. Source:buzz/twitter/reader/friendfeed — to find buzzes from a particular source
2. is:buzz — from your email inbox to find buzz emails
3. author: – to find buzzes by author
4. commenter: – to find all buzzes in your stream that commenter commented on
5. has: link/video/image – to find all buzzes with either a link, video or image

Google Buzz Tips and Tricks
1. Clicking on the time stamp on the right hand side of the stream will pop the conversation into a new tab.
2. Clicking on Comment will bring you directly to the bottom of a thread and into the comment box
3. Is your inbox becoming overloaded with Buzz notifications? Create a Gmail filter to bypass the inbox and into a separate buzz folder.
4. Send twitter like direct messages by typing @ and the contacts email address. Make the message private, click on “post to other groups” and create a bogus group, such as bogus, and then send the message. If you do not set the message to private and select a bogus group this tip will not work. For privacy reasons, you would not be able to accidentally send a DM to your public stream.
5. To remove a source, do -source:source name, for example if you don’t want to see anything coming from Twitter it would be -source:Twitter. This only works for the session you are in.

Buzz On Your Mobile Device
-Buzz Mobile allows you to post buzz with a location tagged to it, as well as search for any nearby buzzes.

What Mobile Devices Can Access Google Buzz?
iPhone: buzz.google.com; Buzzie (Unofficial iPhone App)
Android: buzz.google.com (for Android 2.x); Google Maps (for Android 1.6+); Google Voice Search (for Android 2.x)
Windows Mobile: Using Opera Mobile (not Opera Mini) point your phone to https://m.google.com/app/buzz?force=1#~buzz; Google Maps 4.0 (as a layer)
Symbian: Currently on Google Maps (as a layer) can be used, buzz.google.com does not work
Blackberry: Currently there is no support for any Blackberry devices

Google Buzz Website Apps
1. BuzzAware.com is a directory of Buzz applications
2. BuzzCanTweet sends your buzz to Twitter and allows for some nifty customisations. You can choose to only send buzz that have the tag #twitter
3. Rebuzzthis.com and Buzrr.com are refollow sites for Google buzz.
4. HomePuzz.com allows you to update Facebook, Twitter and Google buzz all at once.
5. Google Buzz Sync allows you to update your Facebook status from Google buzz.
6. Buzz Tweep also allows you to update your Facebook status from Google buzz.
7. Buzzzy.com is a real time search engine for Google buzz (for those of your who do not wish to have buzz accounts but still would like to search buzz.)

This user guide was written by the authors of Buzzite.com. Buzzite will continue to serve the Google buzz community with the latest breaking news, buzz app reviews, buzz editorials and more. If you are interested in assisting Buzzite.com in any way, please contact us at buzzite@gmail.com.

Please follow Buzzite.com on Google buzz at http://profiles.google.com/buzzite.