If there is something this whole Google Buzz episode has taught us, it is that the community of early adapters that is connected by social media REALLY wants to see things improve and move forward for everyone . Whether or not they will use this product themselves is irrelevant… someone else might find that it’s the perfect fit and that is reason enough.

Lots of respect.

Check out the Google Buzz update by Steve Rubel ( @steverubel ) and the extensive thread of comments  and this collection of the best suggestions for Google Buzz from Doriano Carta ( @paisano ). Please consider leaving comments on both of these posts so that their authors can relay your suggestions for how to improve Google Buzz over to Google.

Social media skeptics, this is what it’s is all about.

Google, you guys are lucky social media folks have a lot of love to give. Though you tend to be consistently top notch and you have the resources and the talent to create products to help advance communications and society, you must not take our love for granted… or it will be off with your heads (shameless plug, I really want to see that movie when it comes out March 5th).

Image source: CodePolice.net

I know that it takes times to “see the light” when it comes to new products and services. But since pretty much everything offered on the Web is in constant beta state, if we, the users, don’t do things “Nero-style” and give companies a brutally honest thumbs up or down verdict sooner rather than later, then we miss out on the opportunity to shape the products and services that will later come to shape our reality (Twitter, FTW). So here are my two cents. I am an inbox Nazi. I delete and respond to emails in the constant pursuit of the zero-inbox utopia. Seriously, I’m pretty sure the way to finally reach Enlightenment is through an empty inbox. I ADORE Gmail and email is my top priority. I couldn’t believe that in an effort to force themselves into the social network market, Google would put a “Buzz” link right under my sacred “inbox” link and then tell me that I have more than 100 things to look at when it has taken me all day to respond to 5 emails. Talk about a lack of research and understanding of your publics. So essentially, I have been forced to ignore Buzz. To me it seemed to fall under the “fruit flies buzz around” rather than the “word-of-mouth” definition of the word. I resent this. My friends online are bright people and I just called them fruit flies because Google put out a half-assed product. My affair with Google is intimate. I collaborate using Google Docs, I organize my life with Google Calendars, and I read and learn from the blogs I subscribe to on Google Reader.  My affair with Facebook and Twitter is a little more scandalous and public. For Google to just go balls to the wall with Google Buzz is unacceptable and a huge disservice to their brand and certainly to the rest of us. February 11, 2010 UPDATE: Thanks to Aaron Brazell (@technosailor) for a solid post on Why Google Buzz is the wrong product for Google to try to shove down our throats and for the key to turning it off:

I enabled Buzz on my Gmail account and then promptly disabled it (you too can disable it, if it’s already turned on for you, by clicking on the “turn off Buzz” link in the footer of your Gmail account).