Google is trying to increase adoption of Buzz and it has just released five tips for using the social networking service on your iPhone or Android device.
I think the most useful tip is how to choose to share privately or publicly. I personally don’t care if my information is public but I know a lot of people do. To toggle between public or private sharing, go to google.com/contacts or Buzz in Gmai and hit the “Remove location” link. Following on the location theme, you can also learn more about tagged places by clicking on the “Show map” button on a post. This will include a larger map, as well as reviews, photos, and business details, and, like Foursquare, you will be able to check-in these places.
Other tips include:
Search for a place to post from
Tagging a post with your location is easy and fun. You can just tap the location box in the posting screen to add a place name or an address. Or, you can search for a place. Click “>” in the location box and scroll down a bit to find the search box. This will allow you to search for places nearby and tag your post with that location.
View mobile profiles and follow new people
You’ll often find interesting public posts or comments made by people you’re not following yet. If you’d like to start following them, simply tap on their name to visit their mobile profile page, click the ‘Buzz’ tab, and tap ‘Follow’. The ‘Contact Info’ tab includes info pulled from their public Google profile that they’ve chosen to share and any additional info you may have about them in your contacts, making it easy for you to contact them with one click.
Auto-finish @reply
When you want to include someone in a post or comment, you can use the @reply feature. On mobile devices, simply type “@user”, which will be automatically expanded to “@user@gmail.com” for you. This will save you time typing on the phone.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve found Buzz to be nearly useless on the desktop. I do see a lot of potential in the mobile version though, and these hints could make it more useful. Google also said it is working to bring Buzz to multiple other smartphone platforms.
[Via Google Mobile Blog, photo via Brisbane Times]