When you find interesting content in your social streams, it's very common for you to want to share that content to your own social graph - letting more people be exposed to what you found interesting. This need to reshare has led to Twitter's integrated Retweet functionality, and the ability to reshare items on FriendFeed and Facebook. Today, Google Buzz joins the resharing party, letting users of the nascent social network share content from any Buzz user to their own followers, while still providing attribution to the original source. The feature enhancement is said to be among the most popular user requests, and meets the team's objective of adding a new feature a week to Buzz.

Now, Buzz users, myself included, will have four options to spread the love for any individual item. You can still comment on the item and like it, or send it via e-mail, but a new "Reshare" button is included.


Unlike Twitter's new Retweet functionality, which does not allow for any modification on forwarding updates, Buzz opted for a "two-click" process, where you can click reshare, add a comment to say why you found the content interesting ,and then hit post to add it to your stream. And yes, the Google team thought ahead, so if a bunch of your friends reshare the same content, similar posts will be collapsed, so you only see each item once. Similarly, downstream reshares of reshares give attribution to the first poster.


The official blog post introducing the feature talks about how resharing the post "forks" the conversation, essentially setting up two places in two different social graphs, to discuss the same content. This distributed comments debate has been fodder for much of its own discussion for a few years, but looks to finally be closing down, especially with the rollout of public comments on Google Reader announced just this Monday.

The downstream benefit of the Reshare feature will depend on the diversity of one's network, and if you cross multiple sharing circles. If your network is closed, it will simply add noise, but if you have a network of connections that extends beyond a small group, the feature could increase eyeballs to interesting content from all sources.

You can reshare anything I post to http://www.google.com/profiles/louisgray.

Following up on yesterday's discussion with new Foursquare product manager Siobhan Quinn, North Carolina blogger Wayne Sutton (@waynesutton) and I took time this afternoon to talk about how we see businesses benefiting from location-based services, and Google's role in the market. Additionally, we took a few minutes to talk about Facebook's announced changes to their approach to privacy, updated today in an event chaired by CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

In short, I said that I while I have always considered my content on Facebook public and open, the company's changes have negatively impacted users and were made worse through their poor rollout and a lack of clear communication. You can hear our comments in full in the below embedded podcast, and catch Wayne's blog here.

SocialWayne.com Podcast #11 - All about Location with @LouisGray by waynesutton

Increasingly, some of the new rules issued from popular Web platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, are raising more questions than answers, with words so carefully interwoven as to be interpreted any which way. The call for clarity from Facebook around privacy and from Twitter around what is permitted in users' streams from developers and programs alike seems to be unending - and it seems at times that the companies are being obtuse so they can be selective on how they choose to endorse the rules down the line. Monday's announcement from Twitter on blocking "injected paid tweets" on any service that leverages the Twitter API had a lot of people asking what this meant for services who derive revenue from posting content to the service. MyLikes, a company I advise for, was one that received questions. I spoke with CEO Bindu Reddy (@bindureddy) that night to gain her take and get some of the answers myself.

As best as I am able to understand it, Twitter is continuing to try and improve the user experience on their service, which at times has been less than fantastic. On the back of their efforts to weed out spammers, reduce the artificially-inflated visibility of hand-selected celebrities, reduce negatively-intended automation, improving uptime, and expanding a familiar presence to onboard new users, Monday's announcement looks like they want to improve the clarity of sponsored content on the network, while also protecting their own revenue stream.

The relevant line in question from Twitter COO Dick Costolo, says: "aside from Promoted Tweets, we will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API." This line particularly focuses on the use of API for automation, and also the phrase "paid tweet", which is open for interpretation. What is promising in the piece is that Costolo says the company does not seek to control the content on the service, and that companies are open to sell ads, build vertical apps and analytics, and that the company does not always need to participate in revenue generated from their service. It sounds to me that Twitter is planning ahead for future battles with nefarious networks that are not in users' best interest, much more so than they are seeking to slow legitimate companies that have been built around their ecosystem.

As I mentioned when I first announced my affiliation with MyLikes, I am attracted to the company's model because the ads posted to Twitter, blogs and other networks are done by hand, by the users themselves, with the user creating the message. There is no automation on the user's behalf that they have not created themselves, and all the activity is above board.

In talking with Bindu, she agreed this sets the company apart from Twitter's foes. Also - a MyLikes generated tweet is as much of a personal endorsement as it is an ad, leaving this activity free and clear. In fact, while Costolo's post was somewhat confusing, we both agreed Twitter's move was one that continued their path toward maturation.

Update: You can also see Twitter API Lead Ryan Sarver (@ryansarver)'s comments on the situation here.

To hear more of Bindu's thoughts, check out the Cinchcast I recorded below:



DISCLOSURE: I am an unpaid advisor to MyLikes. I hold a small equity stake in the company. My comments on the company's product are always independent, and do not pass their way in advance.

After seven years at Google, including the last two and a half as a product manager on the company's Blogger platform, Siobhan Quinn handed in her badge yesterday, and will start on June 7th as the first product manager at the fast-growing, location obsessed, Foursquare, in New York City, joining head of product Alex Rainert. Siobhan is the second of Blogger's three product managers to have recently made a move, following Rick Klau's move to manage Google Profiles last month. I talked with Siobhan today to find out her thoughts on Foursquare's potential, and how the company can transition from one beloved by "Silicon Valley nerds" to a more mainstream audience, delivering real value.

Siobhan initially joined Google in 2003 as part of the Google Accounts team before Accounts had launched, predating even the launch of GMail (in April of '04). She says she worked on the front-end to Accounts, the sign-in system, and new account flow, helping to connect accounts to many of Google's other properties, including Adwords, personalized search, Google Checkout and, of course, Blogger. But she admitted she hasn't written code in a few years, and has been working to push Blogger from its relatively slower pace of updates to one that has seen increased activity, including the recent launch of the Blogger Template Designer and last week's launch of new Webfonts, with a corresponding API.

"That's why I am excited to leave now," she said. "I made an impact on Blogger, and I've been at Google for 7 years. It is time to do something much different."

How different? Siobhan is leaving a company of 20,000 employees to one of just a hair over 20. Foursquare has gained a lion's share of attention in the tech blogosphere for its checkin application, but in reality, the team remains extremely small. And while many of us have blended our interest in Foursquare with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism, she makes a compelling case for the future of the product - as the platform morphs from one focused on badges and gaming to one more centered on reviews and tips from your social graph.

Siobhan postulates that Foursquare tips can become a lot more useful as more people use the service, and start to fill in the system's data, even with what I've always thought were the mundane check-ins as gas stations, fast food restaurants, office buildings, or parks.

"We can make tips a lot more useful," she said. "For example, if you are looking for a dentist in your town, and people in your social graph have reviewed a dentist near you and checked in three times this year, that's powerful for me. That's the dentist I would want to go to. Combining checkins and reviews and your social graph would be a powerful demand generation tool."

For many Foursquare users, the fun in using the application has come from gaining mayorships and accumulation of brightly colored badges. As I joked maybe Foursquare would be moving to offer vice mayorships, deputy mayorships and other titles, she agreed that "there need to be more opportunities for users to win", adding "the mayor should be able to set some laws. Maybe the mayor can design the drink special."

Beyond the recommendation and tip aspect from connected friends within the Foursquare social graph, businesses have many opportunities to leverage checkin activity that hasn't yet been tapped, she said. While Starbucks gained good visibility for offering $1 off Frappuccinos for the store's mayors nationwide, their efforts are the exception and not the rule today.

"If you're at Wendy's and you get three other people to check in with you, maybe you get a free meal," Siobhan suggested. "And then, maybe that makes the restaurant trend and become the hotspot to be. For users who are not in the geeky, trendy, Silicon Valley area, and are offered incentives to add reviews and checkins, they could be included to do that."

Her last role at Blogger centered around many people bringing their offline lives online, and sharing their stories. But Foursquare has the power to impact offline behavior, as friends seek out friends and experiment with new venues - practically a 180 degree turn.

"Foursquare is making people explore a little more and step outside their comfort zone," she said. "I like any product that makes people's lives more meaningful offline. It encourages you to explore and try new things away from your computer."

Siobhan doesn't have much time between now and her first day at Foursquare HQ - giving her just over a week to pack, sell her car and furniture, and head to New York with her dog in tow. Siobhan (according to her Foursquare profile) is mayor of ME Cabo in Cabo San Lucas, but hasn't claimed any Bay Area properties. Maybe New York will bring her more luck. Until she starts logging checkins on the East Coast, you can find her on Twitter at @siobhanquinn.

Meanwhile, Blogger remains in the hands of Chang Kim, who joined the team after Google acquired his company, TNC, in September of 2008.