Stephen Bolen

Gizmodo is reporting that Google is finally – after a botched Google Buzz launch and a stalled Google Wave launch (is it even launched yet?) – hiring for a head of social media.

GigaOM acquired a recruiting letter from Google:

This is a new and very strategic position, as Google knows it is late on this front and is appropriately humble about it. In Google’s view, conceptually, there are two ways to tackle social, each impacting who may be successful in this senior post: 1) building an innovating offering specifically in this area; or 2) developing the capability and integrating social into Google’s existing portfolio.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ve probably seen my initial thoughts and problems with Google Buzz (aside from the whole privacy sinkholes – those were pretty obvious from the get-go). Would the director of social media have the authority to change anything about the products, or would s(he) only have the ability to promote and guide product launches? Clearly, there are a lot of unanswered questions one would have to consider before applying/taking the position.

So, your homework assignment for today: Would you tackle the position at Google? Why or why not? What advice would you give to Google’s new head of social media?

Maybe I’d like Google Buzz more if my inbox wasn’t full of emails from myself. Or was able to see newer posts show up first, as opposed to the posts with the most recent comments. There are a lot of gripes early on, but at the end of the day, Google Buzz can be a really great tool.

That said, here are the top 3 things I’d change about Google Buzz:

1. New Buzz items float to the top. Matt Cutts, Google’s webspam ninja and all-around Google evangelist, had a rather benign Hello World Buzz he posted on February 11. People are still responding to it as we speak. It’s been at the top – or near the top – since he clicked the post button.
2. Slightly better privacy options. I applaud Google for responding so quickly to security concerns with Buzz; however, I still think they need to do more. I’m being followed by an army of Asian spammers. I block ‘em, natch. But still. Please, Google, make it a little more difficult for people to follow me that aren’t one of my regular Gmail contacts.
3. iPhone/Android/Blackberry App. This is a no-brainer. You want people to check in to locations, a la Foursquare and Yelp? Well, make it easy for them, because pulling up the HTML 5-based Buzz site is a major Buzzkill.

Honorable mention: allowing users to attach more than one image or link to a reply. Hot damn, that’s annoying.

What would you change about Buzz if you were king for a day?