I get the feeling that I’m spending too much time on the internet when I find “local” news on foreign blogs. Truth be told, I had no previous knowledge of this until I read about it on Treehugger just today.
What’s it all about, then? Well, it’s a “poetic” bike path that stands along the shore of the river Tejo (Tagus), in my hometown Lisbon. The pavement is decorated with phrases from “O Guardador de Rebanhos” by Alberto Caeiro – one of the pseudonyms of the great Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. The outcome is quite interesting as you can see in the video above, authored by Abílio Vieira. If you’re interested you can find more pictures right here with some additional details.

Life is grand at Googleplex. Maybe you folks should stop staring at the fishes and get to work now, huh?

Google Buzz is here, yey!... Look. It’s this new thing on my Gmail where I can do really cool stuff like sharing links and photos and stuff. Damn, aren’t those Google folks brilliant. How did they come up with that? It’s not like you could be doing that same stuff on Tumblr or Facebook or every other space in the Social Web for years.

Yes, the Social Web… Just how bad can it be? Do we really need it so much that it has to be everywhere? So let’s look at Google for a second. I thought these guys were all supposed to be geniuses or something. Don’t they have to take this crazy admission test where you need a 165 plus IQ to pass? Well, my guess is maybe that’s the problem. Too many freakin’ geniuses running around staring at fishes and lava lamps. They’re lacking your plain average common sense. Or mine. Darn, I want my seat on that fish room too!

So what’s wrong with Gee Buzz? I understand what they’re going for. Integration, integration, integration. Nothing wrong with that. But the question remains: what’s Google bringing to the table that no one else has to offer? What’s new about Buzz? What can I do with it that I can’t be doing elsewhere, that’s going to make me feel like I really need it and can’t understand how on Earth I could live without it anymore?

The answer, sorry to say, is “nothing”. It looks like a poor man’s Facebook. And Facebook sucks, by the way, with all its corporate marketizing and useless apps. Get that goddamn cow out of my face will ya’?

Let me tell you about Facebook. It’s become the web’s entrance door for people who missed the blogging revolution. I don’t want to sound harsh but most of these people have no “internet culture” – I know, it's not like most bloggers have it, either. But Facebook is really great at deceiving you because it provides instant gratification within your group of “friends”. So you actually think you’re getting somewhere or, even worse, think you’re making a statement by subscribing to thousands of petitions or joining the group to save the frogs of Tasmania or whatever like you’re making a difference. What happens to Facebook is that, although it’s great as a concept, it gets ruined by spammy invites, useless quizzes and plain stupid games that I couldn’t care less about.

Back to Buzz, the real problem is that it has no punch. No personality. And the interface is unimaginative. Just look at Twitter. It’s simple and fun. It makes you want to say something. With Buzz, you stare at it and wonder «okay, so what am I supposed to do with it?» Sure, I can associate every other web space of mine like Blog and Reader and Twitter. But is that the way to really use it? What else is there? Oh, right. Links and images. How great.

As it is, Google Buzz is simply redundant.