10 Google Buzzzzzzzzz Tips

Now that people have been playing with Google Buzz in Gmail for a week and we've rolled out the improvements we announced here over the weekend, we wanted to let you know about some tips and tricks to help you get the most out of Buzz. Here are five tips to get you started:

01. Format your posts. When posting in Buzz, you can format text just as you can in Gmail chat: *bold*, _italics_, or -strikethrough- all work.



02. View a summary of your own Buzz activity at www.google.com/dashboard. The Google Dashboard provides a private, consolidated summary of the data associated with your Google account, as well as direct links to control your personal settings. As of today, Buzz has its own section on the Dashboard, so you can see how many people you're following, how many people are following you, and information about your recent posts, comments, and likes. You can also access your Buzz settings right there on the page.


03. Use an @reply to send a post directly to someone's inbox. If you want to make sure one of your friends sees a certain Buzz post, you can direct it to their inbox with an @reply. Type the "@" symbol followed by the first few letters of their name, and select their email address from the list. Only you'll see their Gmail address — other people will just see their name.



04. Try keyboard shortcuts to fly through buzz. Turn on keyboard shortcuts from Settings, and use "j" or "n" to scroll down the buzz tab, "k" or "p" to go back up, "r" to comment (same shortcut as reply in Gmail), and "shift + l" to like.

05. Mute posts so they don't get sent to your inbox. Comments on your posts and comments after your comments send buzz directly to your inbox. If you don't want a lively conversation to keep appearing in your inbox as people reply to it, you can mute it. Click the arrow in the corner of a buzz post and select "Mute this post."


If you have keyboard shortcuts turned on, you can also mute buzz that appears in your inbox by hitting the "m" key while you're reading it.

06. Post by email. You can post buzz by emailing buzz@gmail.com — super handy for posting photos you take on your phone. Photos that you attach to your email will appear along with the subject line of your message. You can choose who can see posts you email into Buzz from the connected sites menu (click "Buzz," then "Connected Sites").


07. Prevent your boring chat status messages from being posted to Buzz. By default, your chat status messages are posted to Buzz and shared with your chat contacts. Don't want a boring message like "be right back" to turn into a Buzz post? Just put parentheses around it. If you don't want any of your chat status messages to get posted, you can always disconnect chat from the connected sites menu.


08. Look for the yellow line to see what's new. Can't figure out what's new on the Buzz tab? Posts and comments new since your last visit have a light yellow line along the left hand edge (if you're using a different theme the color may vary).


09. Link to a post. Each Buzz post has a permalink, so you can link to it. Click the down-arrow in the upper right-hand corner of a post, and select "Link to this post." Of course, you'lll only be able to see the posts you have access to.


10. Follow the Buzz team in Google Buzz. Visit buzz.google.com/googlebuzz and click "Follow Google Buzz" to get updates about what we're working on and send us your feedback.


 Check out our Help Center for more tips and answers to your common questions, and stay tuned for more here as well.

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