If you haven’t already heard (and if you haven’t I assume you live under a rock) Google is going to compete with the likes of Facebook and Twitter with the soon to be released “Google Buzz”. Since Google has yet to activate “Buzz” within my Gmail account, I will save my opinions as it relates to its usability and functionality for another post.
Instead I am going to state what immediately came to my mind when I first heard the rumblings or the “Buzz” this morning…
It’s about time, Google!
Yep, I said it. So now what?
So although “Buzz” might be the best thing since sliced bread it seems awfully reactionary (as if someone at Google woke up one day and realized…uh-oh, we missed the boat on the power of social media). Call me crazy, but isn’t this the very thing most IT pundits accuse Microsoft of? Come to think of it, they seem to be somewhat late to the mobile party as well. Is being late to the party a trend for Google? I truly hope not.
My point to all this is that with the enormous growth that Google has had over the last several years I can only hope they don’t lose the innovative, entrepreneurial spirit they are famous for. Otherwise, they might be labeled (either fairly or unfairly), Microsoft-like.
I am stunned to see that they named their new product the same as a (Digg-like) Yahoo product and an AT&T-owned pre-beta social media site. Google *really* does not care about IP.
Got the Buzz today with my gmail…playing around with it…seems somewhat of hybrid b/w gchat and wave. Hard for new technologies to find a gap I’m missing at this moment…but maybe it’ll become apparent
I was listening to talk radio yesterday, and they were discussing Google Buzz. They indicated this is not the first time Google has implemented this type of “product”. Evidently they have created similar products in the past, but they only had a following in Europe….kinda reminds me of Facebook. Facebook has been pretty popular in Europe for quite some time, whereas here in the US, people were using MySpace 2 or so years ago. It will be interesting to see what happens with Google Buzz!
I can’t take any more social networks! I’m networked out and I just don’t have the energy to check one more site. The nice thing is that it is integrated with GMail, but I have too many e-mail accounts too. I’m not going to bother. I’ll stick with LinkedIn and of course GovLoop.
they created Orkut a while ago (around facebook time?) which is huge in europe and brazil. but i think they’re trying to have google as the one stop shop for everything/ especially since chrome integrates everythign already and evidently going as a web OS. I like the trial/error sense of their beta releases. why not 😉
I got Google Buzz yesterday afternoon, and my immediate family seemed to arrive on it at the same time. Before this we used Chat in gmail for our asynchronous messages to one another. We also have Googlewave and are not using it much as family, but I use it during events as a backchannel.
Buzz looks better. So far I like the convenience of inserting photos & videos from other online services. I was at Gov 2.0 LA (#gov20la) and uploaded my Southern California photos and a video to Flickr, which I like to share selectively with family and friends.
Barbara
Google Buzz is Google Wave in a different package.
a *footnote to Google Buzz > Businessinsider has a warning re: privacy http://www.businessinsider.com/warning-google-buzz-has-a-huge-privacy-flaw-2010-2#
I’ve noticed a massive perception problem with Google Buzz in how folks who currently use Twitter are viewing it separately from those who don’t use Twitter. In my mind, after playing with it, Buzz is not a game changer for social networking but for sharing information in a way Barbara comments Google Talk is used for chats.
Buzz is not Twitter. Buzz is not Facebook. I don’t see it replacing either. If you unfollow everyone who you know on both of those networks, your Buzz life will be much easier — which to me, is the opt-in but nil messages.
I’ll be blogging in depth about Buzz on Saturday, over at http://ariwriter.com