OExchange, a simple specification for URL-based content sharing on the Web, was introduced today by a number of online service providers and social networks. The open link-sharing protocol has gained support from Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Digg, Instapaper, StumbleUpon, Clearspring Technologies and a handful more.

So what’s it all about?

OExchange essentially establishes a common way for services like Posterous and Google Buzz to receive content. The protocol defines how third-party tools, e.g. Clearspring’s bookmarking and sharing service AddThis, can dynamically discover and share content to these services, as well as how sharing tools can read and set a user’s sharing preferences.

A number of these services, like Google Buzz and Instapaper, have already implemented the protocol, which together with others such as OpenID and OAuth intends to making sharing content on the Web completely open. OExchange is licensed under the Open Web Foundation Agreement – you can get the specs here.

Chris Messina, Open Web Advocate at Google, has this to say about the new protocol:

“The key to increasing the amount and quality of sharing online is smoothing out the user interaction. By simplifying the underlying mechanism for cross-site sharing with OExchange, people can focus on what they’re sharing, rather than how.”

Do you agree that there’s a need for an open URL sharing protocol (which companies like Twitter and Facebook seem to doubt, since they’re not supporting it)?

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When Google Buzz launched three weeks ago, the product wasn’t ready. There were basic privacy issues that still needed to be hammered out (and were quickly addressed by Google), but beyond that Google Buzz simply did not work smoothly enough to force feed it to 175 million Gmail users without any warning. (MG covered some of the usability issues last week).

So why was Google Buzz pushed out the door too soon? I have three interrelated theories:

1. Google still wants to buy Twitter, and putting Buzz into Gmail might be enough of a threat to bring Twitter back to the table.  Buzz did not launch in some Google Labs backwater.  It is placed front and center in Gmail.  Buzz is Google’s strongest effort yet to enter the stream.  If Buzz can gain traction it would certainly help Google’s negotiating position with Twitter.
2. Independent of any pressure it may place on Twitter, Google needs to have its own realtime micro-messaging communications system.  The micro-message bus is just a more efficient way to communicate than email for many types of messages so it makes sense to add it as a layer to Gmail: broadcast your public messages via Buzz, and keep private ones on email or chat, all from the same place.
3. The other reason Google needed to establish its own social stream pronto is that links passed through social sharing are beginning to rival search as a primary driver of traffic for many sites.  Part of Google’s prowess stems from the fact that it is the largest referrer of traffic to many other Websites. It doesn’t want to lose that status to social sharing streams such as Facebook or Twitter.  Already, Buzz is helping to boost sharing through Google Reader.  While Google doesn’t benefit directly from that traffic (yet), simply knowing what links people are sharing and clicking on is valuable data which can help it improve its search results.

Google needed to get into this game as fast as it could, even if there were bumps along the way.  The question now is whether Buzz can keep building.

Photo credit: Flickr/ Chelseagirl

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Google Buzz launched with more than its fair share of privacy issues, leading to a significant backlash from some users. Fortunately the Buzz team is fixing these issues at a brisk pace. Today, they’ve rolled out a fix to a bug that would let users inadvertently expose their friends’ private email addresses using Buzz’s @reply system. Now, instead of sharing these private email addresses with the public, Buzz will simply show everyone a series of asterisks.

The bug stemmed from the way Buzz handles @replies. To send a message to someone you do it using their Email address, and Buzz makes this easy by showing an autocomplete box as you start typing their name. Unfortunately if you happened to pick an Email address that wasn’t associated with a Google Profile (which is quite easy to do given how many people use multiple accounts), Buzz would expose that Email address to the world.

Earlier this week Google helped allay privacy concerns with some other changes to Buzz, including a more prominent option to hide your follower lists (which could be used to figure out who you frequently exchange emails with).

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When it came to Facebook and Twitter, it took brands a while to figure out how to take advantage of the social networks. With Foursquare, they have been much faster. But now with Google Buzz, they’re beating plenty of early adopters to it.

Samsung has already set up a Google Buzz account this morning and is already cranking out buzzes. Not only that, but they’re apparently trying to start their own trends on the service, as they have today tagged a bunch of their “favorite buzzers” and tagged the buzz with “#BUZZwednesday.” Of course, the problem here is that Google Buzz doesn’t support the “#” symbol the same way Twitter does (at least not yet). Still, you can search Buzz (right from within Gmail) for the term “#BUZZwednesday” and Samsung’s buzz will appear.

Of course, what’s annoying about the Buzz tagging mechanism is that it automatically sends these message to your Gmail inbox if you’re mentioned in one.

Hope everyone is ready for an onslaught of brands on the service! Need I remind you that Google Buzz just launched yesterday?

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