So while I was on my little hiatus, Google did it again, and by that I mean they came out with yet another free tool to hook people on. Following up with the social aspect of Google Wave, Google Buzz arrived a few days ago, integrated with Gmail and designed to be a response to social networking services like Facebook and Twitter. What’s the Buzz about? Well, with auto-follow on your most frequently mailed contacts, ability to share URL’s with your followers and who you follow, and Google’s almost idiot-proof interface design, Buzz has generated…well a bit of buzz for people.
A lot of naysayers say that Google spreads itself too thin by basically trying to do anything and everything, and that this latest foray into territory held by dedicated services is destined to fail. But Google, if anything, has learned to cultivate its tools by integrating them with its existing bread and butter services. Wave, for example, has had a slow start due to a lack of seamless integration with Gmail. Buzz, on the other hand, includes a brand new section in your Gmail and allows you to access you and your friend’s feeds at the click of a mouse. It’s why the response has been a bit favorable than it could have been.
I typically like to use Twitter and Facebook integrated together, so hopefully Buzz has the ability to integrate with all those services in order to present updates. It was interesting to see how many of my most frequent Gmail emailers decided to follow me – some did, and some didn’t, and my friends have taken to posting everything on Buzz from news articles to picture links. Funny how social networking services take off like that.
Whether or not Google’s newest tool will succeed remains to be seen – but it’s at least nice to see that a company isn’t willing to rest on the laurels of its past successes. If Google was satisfied with just its search engine, then we’d never see the convenience of Gmail or Google Docs or Google Video. Sure, there are some tools that are just a bit forgettable (Google Notebook anyone), but there’ve been more hits than misses, so I’m looking forward to what Buzz has to offer us.
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you can link twitter, I’m not sure about facebook. I haven’t tested it out myself, but I know people who have twitter dumping to buzz as well. Though there seems to be a bit of a time delay. But I imagine that will get better with time.
I hope buzz catches on with everyone. I love it so far.
I absolutely hated Wave, was way too clumsy.
I’m waiting to see how they hook non Gmail users into Buzz. If they can’t do that, it’ll never see the same use that Twitter or FB has. Instead I could see it acting as a replacement for Gmail to a degree.