The Buzz On Google Buzz

Yet another social media site? Or is Google Buzz going to be something different. Today, Google announced the launch of Google Buzz which is built right into Gmail – as they said, “…there’s nothing to set up — you’re automatically following the people you email and chat with the most.” This of course assumes you have a Gmail account set up.

It will be interesting to see how Buzz takes on the other social networking sites. It appears to be blending Twitter, Facebook and FourSquare into one formidable challenger, but is it likely to be that “killer” of any or all of these? Ummm… doubtful. I think it offers a different way of sharing media but it’s unlikely to lure over Facebook or Twitter users. It’s likely to be attractive to a small percent of existing Gmail users who are not already using one of the other social media sites.

The biggest issue I predict with Buzz is that it’s not a stand-alone application. Meaning someone who’s never heard of Buzz will only be aware of it if they have and use Gmail and are connected to someone else who also has and uses a Gmail account. It’s kind of like an invitation to a party that you already have to be attending in the first place. Google could have made Buzz accounts accessible with existing Gmail accounts (and provided the Gmail integration), but it should have made Buzz its own site with allowances for other non-Gmail accounts to participate. Perhaps that’s phase two though, after testing it on a smaller scale. We’ll wait and see if it’s really a buzz or just a buzzard.

Tags: google buzz, social media

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Google & Search, SEO & Internet Marketing, Social Media & SMO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.