GMAIL USERS: We hope you'll join the discussion over on Mashable’s Google Buzz account.

Earlier today, we posted a buzz asking our followers: "What features would you like to see in Google Buzz?" We received just shy of 500 responses over the course of the afternoon, and we saw both big trends and unique ideas.

Here are a few of the biggest and best responses. Some are obvious — some not so much. We think they're all great ideas, though, except maybe the last one! But some 75 million people might disagree with us.

Keep reading to find out what we (or rather you) are talking about, and be sure to add your own ideas to the comments here or over on our Google Buzz.

The #1 Request: Collapsible Comment Threads

Far and away, the most requested feature is the ability to collapse comments. By our count, 197 of the 492 comments that we read before writing this requested this feature. The issue is that posts are sorted on the main interface chronologically by the most recent comment.

That means any buzz that gets an insane number of comments (like, say, the very "what features would you like" buzz we're talking about) gets stuck to the top of the feed because it keeps receiving new comments. Since it has hundreds of comments, it's so long that you "have to SCROLL FOR EIGHT YEARS," as Buzz user Ian Wheat puts it.

The consensus is that if you're following any brands or extremely popular individuals, this is a major issue because it makes Buzz almost unusable. Maybe it didn't occur to Google because there weren't enough users testing Buzz internally to create the problem to begin with.

Better Facebook and Twitter Integration







The second most popular request was for integration with Facebook, and the ability to send buzz posts out to Twitter. There are some technical challenges to the latter since Buzz allows more characters than Twitter does, but it would still be nice to be able to send buzzes that have less than 140 characters out to Twitter.

Of course, there's no connection at all between Buzz and Facebook. We suggested that this is going to be Buzz's biggest challenge moving forward if it's not resolved. Facebook's relationship with Microsoft makes this an even bigger challenge.

More Chronological Sorting Options

One consistent theme: There should be more ways to sort buzzes and comments chronologically.

John Fredrickson summarized one of the most common requests succinctly: "We need a way to separate recently commented buzz from new buzz. As it is right now, the recently commented buzz dominates the stream so that you never see any new buzz." This is of course related to the collapsible comments issue we mentioned above.

Many readers requested the ability to see the newest comments at the top of a buzz, not the bottom. When a buzz's comment thread gets long, you have to scroll down a long way to see what's new or to post your own comment. It's a bit of a hassle.

Lisa Neal Shaw also suggested the "ability to switch back and forth between trending and chronological buzzes."

Repost/Rebuzz/Share







Folks couldn't quite agree on the terminology, but no matter what they called it, a lot of them wanted the same thing: a Facebook Share or Twitter retweet-like feature to copy buzzes and send them out to followers.

Facebook has only recently added this feature (though the implementation is closer to Buzz's than it is to Twitter's), but it's a huge part of what makes Twitter work — especially for brands.

There was some dissent on this one, though. Several people requested that a repost feature not be added, including Eric Droege, who said: "Please no re-post feature. That is the most over-used Twitter feature and its annoying when someone just goes over and over retweeting."

Other Suggestions

We liked Joshua Montgomery's suggestion: "An application similar to the Google Wave Yes/No/Maybe. It seems geared specifically for some of the posts I see. 'Is Google Buzz a Hit?' Use the Yes/No/Maybe app rather than 214 people having to list their answer."

John Wilson and numerous others wanted "the ability to add photo/video to a comment."

In contrast to the requests for greater Facebook and Twitter integration Robert de Castro said, "Definitely a way to mute specific 3rd party feeds (Twitter, Friendfeed, etc)... people who tweet too much as it is, there just isn't a way around it unless you unfollow them completely." That isn't too surprising; there's a sizable minority of Facebook users who get frustrated with seeing Twitter hashtags and the like in their news feeds.

Jehad Affoneh wants Google to "add the update status bar somewhere on the top of Gmail. I am not sure I want to sign in to Gmail, go to buzz then update my status every time I want to update my status."

Robert N. Lee said only one word: "FARMVILLE." We're not sure we're with him on that one right now, but we'll see! Maybe he was being sarcastic, though. We hope.