Click through for the full HD version via the Spiked Studio page on YouTube!

There will be a part 2 for this explaining how to then hook your website of blog with the new Google Plus page.

I found a few UI issues along the way, but nothing to call a show stopper. Plus this is still a beta product with room to grow and take over what was a space for Gist before they were bought by Research In Motion (BlackBerry).  The service includes seeing:

• inline updates
• it’s own menu on the left navigation
• reminders
• a global address book feature
• new contact alerts

I am eager to see how they evolve and add new social services into the product.  Their feature request list in the FAQ listed Skype and even Google Voice on the wishlist.  So give them a shot and see what you think.  Did I mention it is free?

Related posts

• Gist for BlackBerry review
• Rim buys Gist and deletes all my data?
• Rim buys Gist – thoughts

This screencast walks through:

• The very first Welcome screen
• Verifying or editing your public Google profile
• Creating circles
• Understanding security around the circles
• Hangouts
• Stream basics

From there we will publish some further tutorials and commentary as needed.

You can subscribe to the podcast series or watch below in HD quality from the Spiked Studio channel on YouTube.

Follow along on Twitter or join me on Google+

While this comes directly from a company that Google purchased, Slide, they only made the first release available on iOS devices.  Most would not even notice the lack of Android due to the way it is being marketed.  A brilliant move by Google in my opinion.

In the movie Battle Los Angeles a first wave is deployed to being colonization by direct ground force attack.  Google made this move by getting Disco into the AppStore and approved long before the second, stronger wave, comes along.

The second and stronger wave for Disco, is Google building Disco directly into the Android operating systems that get distributed by the carriers as the group messaging solution.  This compares to the thought in the movie where there was no air capabilities by the invading forces. They suddenly appear and are stronger than anticipated. By getting a ground force of users on a leading phone operating system, Disco can set a foothold into bringing together even more Google services user rely on.

Disco also lacks many advanced features found in group applications launches at SXSWi, which I would hope are coming along even as I type this.  Google is becoming known to launch services and applications that soon flounder, while reviving others (Latitude for example) with features rather unexpectedly.

The final piece will be if the other group messaging systems step up to the plate and bring together a purpose for this deluge of same type applications.  I am yet to find it outside of quick group conversations around events.

You can also watch this in HD and all the network videos on the Spiked Studio Productions channel on YouTube

Greplin was brought to me as a review site with the added question of data security.  Using oAuth, the service pulls your data from a list of public services (see the screencast) and immediately begins to index the data found.  So the initial steps do not disclose your login information, with the flexibility of oAuth.  However, you are exposing personal data across as many networks you connect.

All of the site access is done via SSL, a great first step. However, once you trust your data, you must make the login into Greplin as secure in password quality and strength as you would use for your Google email, apps and even LinkedIn.

How the data is stored by Greplin is not covered in their FAQ, nor was found anywhere else on the site. I would like to see this added in to provide a better sense of comfort.

Outside of that, the service itself was very fast and responsive.  New search abilities are being added.  The prebuilt features did give some immediate benefit of things or associations I may have missed previously.  My test search for iPad in the screencast even turned up come results I missed over time.

The goal of the site is to provide a single search source, fully indexed and finely tunable.  I would hope that eventually they bring the ability to act on something found in search. For example, if I find a Twitter posting result, I could click and retweet, reply or star. The same for email, LinkedIn data and even items I bookmarked into Evernote.

This is a promising service I intend to use as service is expanded, search capability is extended and data storage privacy policies are listed.  Go visit Greplin today.

Gmail has taken a new step forward with the new Priority Inbox in helping to automatically
prioritize your inbox and daily routine.  This is something sorely needed for the bulging inbox.  How it works is the key thing to know.

Priority Inbox sits below compose but above your regular Inbox you are used to now in Gmail.  Mashable explains the sorting it takes on:

At its core, it’s an algorithm; Priority Inbox uses information such as keywords, the people you e-mail the most and your e-mail habits to select the most pressing e-mails in your inbox. Those e-mails are brought to the top of your Gmail and marked as important so that you deal with them first.

Note the fact that Google is taking into account the way you currently work with Gmail for Priority Inbox to function to your advantage.  If you use it as a simple inbound silo, it will look at what you read most and from whom to begin the process.  If you hardly send email from the mailbox, then the ability to return prioritized content based on names is lost.

One way around this is to mark items (star or use Google Labs) to specify important emails to teach Google.  I imagine they are already scoring your content as it stands now, but you can assist and speed up the process.  I am not sure how many people use filters in Gmail, but it can assist in Priority Inbox in showing the system how you work with certain content.

The flip side begs the question, if I no longer pay attention to the rest of my email flow, will I ignore you? If I never flagged your content or you choose the wrong keywords, will I miss your email?  If you send from a new address will I not see it?  How come I am getting some much junk already?  Have I oversubscribed and now need Google to straighten my mess out?

Interestingly, some of the major enterprise email systems work email the same way with filters, flags and automatic folders.  Gmail was sorely missing this capability for the power users and it is a welcome addition.

You should see Priority Inbox in all your Google mailboxes as an option later this week and even in Google Apps if your administrator enables new features.

So here are a couple ways to disable or ignore the Google Buzz buzz.

The first thing I found was a very small, almost hidden, simpe selection at the bottom of Gmail as shown here:

Scroll down all the way to below where it shows disk space used and the IP address lastly logged into Gmail and you will find this area.  It then reloads gmail back to normal with no Buzz to be found.  Could that be any simpler?

The second way was posted in Lifehacker to keep Buzz running but out of your inbox.  It walks you through, with screenshots, of making the proper filters.

I like their idea since Buzz is still active and updating while you work in mail regularly.  This allows you to continue as normal without the constant interruption of popular buzz coming to the stop non-stop.

What worries me about the idea is how Buzz is being archived to your mailfile.  What about size?  Will Buzz soon have attachments? Inline images? Uploaded videos?  The future is unclear.

The third way is to manually go in and unfollow all of the automatic following that occurred and do not add others.  Buzz will sit there blank with no updates.  Keeping it down to a handful of people will give you the experience without the constant traffic and updating.   This will also redece recommendations that show as the system learns your reading, likes and behaviors.

Note: I had not read the whole Lifehacker article to the bottom to see they had included the same thing I mention in #1 about just clicking off.  Sorry about that.

Earlier there were swarms of postings on Google Buzz and tweets were moving too fast to keep up.  I made my own summary posting showing you how I think it all fits together.  Well now I bring a screencast where I walked through the interface as any first time user would explaining how it fits together and getting you up and running quick.  You can watch it in larger size here on Mevio.

This episode is brought to you by Poken, get yours today.

Buzz was a reserved name in Gmail folders for some time, and now it is clear why.  I think Google realized that Wave should not have been the starting point with their jump into the real-time. Something that offered a simpler experience to a larger set of users was needed.  Tapping into Gmail gave them this very audience making it more than email.  It is now a Social Destination.

Before I go into how I see all the capabilities, you should understand that building your Google Profile is a key to bringing and bridging data together to make the most use of Buzz.  A simple way to see what services you have linked is the Google Dashboard I highlighted back in November.

Buzz is a layer that sits between your Gmail contacts and the social web.  It interacts with data (Buzz) generated by your contacts, and even recommended users.  Gone are the days of the 140 character post with a link to a picture.  Images are pulled in from links. Comments can be made.  Sharing is simple.  This is more than a conversation flow.  Google is coming in reverse of what Facebook is doing with Project Titan.  They are leveraging the large email base to make a social destination.  Facebook is trying to leverage their social network to build an email platform.  I think Google just won for the first part of the war.

A question that someone in the audience tried to pose, but was actually addressed in Todd’s portion of the presentation was on privacy controls.  The controls are inherently built in allowing sharing with the general public and small groups/individuals.  Buzz will remember the last setting you use and continue it until you manually make the change.  An excellent default mechanism on one hand and a way to screw yourself on the other.  Just remember to always double check how you are sending something before actual sharing.  I don’t care what service it is on.  Google will also hook together other Google service accounts you have established with no intervention needed.  Adding RSS feeds and other sites such as Twitter are built into the interface.  With PubSubHubBub integration available and an API, your output from Buzz will be open for you to grab as XML now.  This will allow developers to work with the stream and start building products.

Next up was the mobile integration and this is where things get enjoyable.  Currently supported are applications for iPhone and Android.  Simple steps like querying your location for the best location awareness to post Buzz is inherent. After a query, a list will bereturned and ask you to select it to say if you are there.   A layer in the new Google Maps has been added to show Buzz, which gives little balloons around your location with current Buzz.  This takes the term Nearby to a new level and puts a dent in Gowalla, Foursquare and Yelp while enhancing Google latitude (see my many posts right here on Latitude).  This becomes updates and geotagging on steroids.  While Buzz and Latitude operate independently still, a merge is coming (from the Q&A)

At the end, there was a brief Q&A session with the bloggers and press.  Privacy I addressed already above.   Another question was Google Wave integration.  I think that would not be a logical next step as Google answered.  Wave is a whole other dynamic and that would be a huge bridge to lay for the average user.

I have a screencast coming shortly, but this should get you all set for now.  I would suggest you also read Louis Gray’s posting on the announcement today for his excellent thoughts.

• Accounts
• Voice
• Blogger
• Alerts
• Calendar
• Contacts
• FriendConnect
• Gmail
• Latitude
• Picasa
• and yes more..

The point is not the long list, it is Google showing you what you have hooked together and how their sites interact.  It indicates what is public versus private and how you appear across the great chasm.  Each area allows you to manage the profile show or privacy settings under each area with icon indicators for publicly shared data —> Be very aware of this icon in the data you have being shown to you.

What section you should next pay special attention to is your Google search history.  Including images.  This lets you know that you have enabled tracking for your Google history.  I know corporations are worried about what data is being shared out to the Internet but this individual dashboard won’t be visible to anyone but the account owner.  All the benefit goes to the individual.

Now Google was quite excited about what the dashboard itself would offer, and I agree with Mashable on this one in that it is nothing more than an unflattering UI that makes a list of certain things instead of being a workable dashboard (a la Gist for contacts).  Google could have really done something here to make a united view that became a portal for my Google activity.  Including allowing me to add Google Apps accounts and widgets.  Instead of just a simple iGoogle page for gadgets, I would have an account interaction, not management screen.

They could have also added a sweeping privacy control ability as they bring the authentication and profiling closer together across the sites themselves.  The ability to make a single click selection of all sites and change a picture, hide an email address, open it to everyone or anything else might make this worthwhile.

My grade?  A 3 out of 10.  It was heading towards 2 but I know they had to write hooks into each system to pull and show you the data itself.