Amazing photo by Frans Dely/Avpix.co.za

More info at http://www.claybavor.com/

Here’s a look at how it works.

On the face of it, the simplicity of it seems similar to a microblogging tool such as twitter (you have a space to write your update). However, it is embedded in the gmail interface,  making it easy to transition between your email and buzz. You also have a notification bar just below the text box, telling you important updates (in this case if you have new followers, whether or not you are already following them, and a link to find new followers; a very simple, clean, logical design.

What takes it way beyond something like twitter, is the ability to add pictures, video etc. into the post so it’s a lot more like blogging in that sense (yet a lot simpler). In the screengrab below you see a post from Ed showing the snow in Oslo. Also notice the ability to reply with a chat message… so very good integration with both gmail and chat. Also notice that the Buzz has been posted as publicly visible, you can also post it privately to only your chat contacts.

As you can see, you can like, comment, email and reply by chat to a particular “buzz”

You can also take other actions such as linking to a buzz, viewing all buzz from that person, stop following that person, or muting that conversation which will make it disappear from your feed.

A pretty useful thing is that it can analyse your communication habits in order to suggest people to follow. As Google Buzz grows, this will help you by suggesting people that you already communicate a lot with (via chat and email).

Openness is an important aspect, and connectivity to other online tools that we use is available. The screenshot below shows some of the initial ones such as Google chat, Google Reader, twitter, picasa, flickr etc. but this list will grow and grow. This means that your actions in these other social networks will automatically update your buzz.

An added benefit is that this should also play into Google’s social search, which will show you more relevant search results on google.com based on things that your own personal network are sharing and find useful.

In conclusion – a great start with a good clean design. Twitter have not really innovated much since they launched so it’s great to see Google driving some new ideas into the world of the social web.

They have managed to articulate their value proposition very clearly with no unnecessary waffle.

• It articulates what their product (social software) could do (used as a strategic resource to create a new market and product category)
• It provides some evidence to support their promise, in the form of a customer quote.
• It’s targeted and the message is relevant to my role

My only critique would be that they could make a stronger connection to the business outcome that is created by this new way of working. If you click through to the full case study, the customer quote is expanded somewhat…

“Socialtext lets us drink from a steady stream of field insights about customer needs, perceptions and reactions. We now have fast, iterative learning cycles.”

This could be taken one step further i.e. what does a faster, iterative learning cycle mean for the business? For example, the real benefit that I see is that the marketing team can deliver products/services that are more relevant to their customers, resulting in increased sales and market share. That’s what would really get my attention. It’s all in there, but it may be worth calling out the ultimate business value upfront.

My critique aside, it should be noted that this is the only marketing mail that I’ve actually clicked on this week. I also find it interesting that they decided to send it on a weekend, which in actual fact is probably when I will have the time to read it.

First the full article…

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Ad 1…

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Ad 2…

The 2010 Lamborghini Reventón will be a limited production (15 cars) recession-busting €1.1m supercar…

It looks great,  and rather amusing is the spanish translation of Reventón

We also see Microsoft betting large on the aesthetics front with the advent of Bing, their new internet search engine. I’ve switched from using google just because I find it more aesthetically pleasing to see the great photography on the Bing homepage. For Microsoft this is quite an achievement – retaining the simplicity of google yet making it a richer experience.

For a great read on the value of aesthetics, check out this great post about the importance of aesthetics in application design, including a story about better looking Japanese ATMs!

It’s brilliantly designed, clean and also shows the number of comments for each post.

You can easily browse categories, search and subscribe to RSS feeds directly from your iPhone.

If you are browsing this from your iPhone then of course you are already experiencing it.

Installation is easy it took about 30 seconds via “plugins, add new” on the wordpress admin dashboard. There is no config required – it will automatically detect an iPhone or iPod touch and render it accordingly.

The screenshot in this post shows what my blog looks like on an iPhone.

The source of this video is Glenda Watson Hyatt’s blog

Well done to Wordpress on a good, usable product.