Google Buzz – have you got it yet?
Google seems to be waking up to the threat posed by Facebook and Twitter, where updates, conversations and sharing happens in real time.
Enter Google Buzz, the company’s latest product, now offered in an integrated form with its email application, which allows users to quickly share messages, links and photos with friends and colleagues from within Gmail itself. Google also said they are launching a special mobile application for Buzz.
I was a bit surprised with their choice of name though, and they cannot have forgotten that Yahoo! had a similar product with an identical name some years ago which didn’t really make an impact.
With Google Buzz, each time you post, you can share stuff publicly or with a chosen group of friends, whether on Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, and Twitter, and Buzz sends responses to your posts straight to your inbox, which can then be commented on in real time.
You can follow the specific people whose posts you want to see, but Buzz also recommends posts from people you’re not directly following, often ones where your friends are having a lively conversation in the comments. If you’re not interested in a particular recommendation, just click the “Not interested” link and your feedback will help improve the recommendations system. Here’s a short video explaining the buzz behind Buzz…
This feature is not yet made available to everyone, and Google says they will be doing that over the next few days. Frankly, I’m somewhat sceptical of this whole thing, and I don’t think Google has really cracked this problem related to their social networking presence, whether with Orkut a few years ago, then with Google Wave, or with Google Buzz now. Its like they kinda either keep missing the bus or always play catch up.. :p
I’ve yet to see Google Buzz enabled within my account and will post my reactions to it once I’ve used it. Stay tuned.. 
Update: Ok, I’ve got the Buzz, and at first glance, I’m not too fond of it. Seems quite chaotic, with the number of people I’m supposed to be following as well as those following me… no to mention the number of updates and replies to those updates. One big concern I have with this is privacy.. just how much of what and where I update stays within my closed group and what gets ‘buzzed’ around to all and sundry…
