BuzzMachine

To paraphrase Mark Zuckerberg, it is too soon to know what Google+ is. But I’ve been trying to imagine how it will and won’t be useful to news. You should add rock salt to anything I say, as I thought Google Wave would be an important journalistic tool. With that in mind, a few opening thoughts:

* Google+ likely won’t be good for live coverage of breaking events because its algorithm messes with the reverse chronology, promoting old posts when they get new comments. It doesn’t favor the *latest* the way Twitter and liveblogging do and live news is all about the latest. I don’t see Andy Carvin making the switch.

(I’ve wished that I could have the option to get a stream only of newly submitted posts. Many have complained about the promoting of too much old stuff. Sergey Brin said on G+ yesterday that they’ve tweaked the algorithm to give less weight to comments from people you don’t follow.)

* G+ should be good for collaboration on reporting. When I ask a question, the answers appear with my question and subsequent responders can improve on earlier answers. With Circles, I can focus my questions on a specific group (e.g., VCs) and can benefit when their circles see their interaction with me — so long as I am not fool enough to disable sharing.

* If Google gets its synergistic act together and incorporates Google Docs — and some of the tricks from Wave — into G+, then this could be a very good collaboration tool for communities to gather together and share what they know. That’s the basis for news.

* G+ will be good for promoting content. The service isn’t yet open and I have almost more than 7,000 followers. Memes spread quickly on G+, but because of its time-bending algorithm, they also last longer if they spark conversation — that’s its plus side (no pun intended). Automated spewing of headlines likely won’t be effective, but conversing will.

* I see a big problem in the G+ restriction of one link per post. I find that sadly ironic. G+ is a service for sharing and links are the essence of responsible sharing, revealing the provenance of facts and giving credit. A blog post is a better vehicle for a well-sourced, well-linked post.

* G+’s identities likely won’t be as reliable as Facebook’s, as it is easy to create an account and identity on there are not the social pressures for authenticity. Then again, people will invest in their Google profiles, especially as they become more prominent in search (see what Google is doing with authors, broadly defined; I’m one of them in the test). I’m still trying to get my head around the play on identity among Google, Facebook, Twitter, and players yet to join in.

* G+ may be a good place to find photos from news, depending on whether witnesses favor putting them there or on Twitter or on Facebook or on Flickr and how well Google does at making them searchable.

I see that we will have to teach Google Plus at my J-school. Especially at the start, it will be valuable to have students brainstorm how they could use it. That’s the way journalists should approach every promising new tool.

What do you think G+’s uses are for news?