I was discussing on Buzz a few days ago about the best ways to keep in the loop while on the go. I thought I would briefly note down my thoughts for the record.

On my Nexus One I use a combination of two apps to keep me in touch over Buzz. I use the official Google widget, which provides a great creation mechanism, combined with Seemsic for Android, which provides the reading experience. Admittedly it’s a bit clunky having one for each of the activities, but that doesn’t mean I don’t use Seesmic to post – but from the home screen the widget provides the best experience.

I was thinking the other day about how I use the iPad, Nexus One, netbook, MacBook, desktop PC and so on together. I found it strange how I could accept iOS 3′s restrictions on the iPad, but when I tried to use an iPhone I found myself constantly annoyed about being unable to perform the various tasks I wanted to do.

iPad Unboxing

I suspect what it comes down to is the fact that I expect my mobile phone to perform a lot of tasks – and in many ways, I have been spoilt by the Nexus One allowing me to do pretty much anything I could ever want it to. However with the iPad, there is no precedent – there hasn’t really been a truly widespread tablet of this kind before, so coming in to it makes it a new experience.

Nexus One

Sure, it isn’t without its annoyances here and there when things go horribly wrong (and hopefully iOS 4 will go some way to address that); but I still think the iPad user experience is managed and what I would expect it to be.

Earlier this month Google announced App Inventor, an easy way for anyone to get started on building Android applications. Earlier this week I got myself an invite, and headed over to see what’s what.

App Inventor is in its very early stages. It’s a closed beta, with invites going out to people when Google have the capacity and find suitable people. This shows, as there are still some clunky parts and limitations that will have to be overcome before release, but other than that it seems like an excellent preview of what’s to come.

Google Buzz seems quite empty at the moment. And judging by how much buzz it’s getting (pun not intended…) a lot of people seem to have given up on it.

The reason I say it is quite empty is not through lack of content. I follow a few people from around my area (but not many, it has to be said) so that could be improved. And it’s not that there isn’t that much content in there – there is loads (probably too much). It is just that there seems to be no original content on there whatsoever.

In the beginning, it was all too easy. Sign in to Google Mail, hit Buzz, check all the boxes for “Connect my Twitter!”, “Connect my Blog!”, “Connect my toilet!” and there you go, instant Buzz account! No maintenance required.

That seems to have done more harm than good. There is pretty much no original content created on Buzz now, making it a desolate wasteland where you just have people’s tweets talking to one another. Boring.

So, what are we going to do about this? Yes, we. Because it’s not Google’s fault that it’s turned out so badly. The connection options got people interested and using it to begin with. Yes it’s our fault, its users, that it has all gone wrong. So here’s what I propose to fix it.

1. Unlink everything

For the love of all things social networking, please unlink all that stuff that doesn’t need to be linked. Buzz can stand up on its own without requiring drip-feeding from other platforms.

Of course, some stuff would be quite useful – Picasa or Google Reader for example. But I don’t need your tweets – that’s another platform entirely.

2. Use it!

Buzz is tightly integrated with Android, so users of those phones really don’t have an excuse. You can grab the Buzz widget for your home screen by scanning the QR code below.

3. Find people

Buzz has great discovery tools for finding people who are nearby or who you know through other means.

Again, if you’re on Android, then check out the Buzz integration with the latest versions of the Maps application, and see who’s buzzing nearby.

Wow, HTML 5 had a brilliant time at Google IO last week. Here’s a recap of some of the top news coming from the event regarding the technology.