Google doesn’t have to do all that much to generate buzz—the company’s pretty much a buzz machine these days—but with its launch of Google Buzz, there’s a lot to discuss and evaluate, the technology world’s buzz evaluators are going wild.
But what is Google Buzz? It’s essentially a social networking service connected to Gmail, as noted by TechCrunch, which compares it to Google Wave:
Google Buzz is easily the company’s boldest attempt yet to build a social network. Imagine taking elements of Twitter, Yammer, Foursquare, Yelp, and other social services, and shoving them together into one package. Now imagine covering that package in a layer that looks a lot like FriendFeed. Now imagine shoving that package inside of Gmail. That’s Buzz.
The New York Times says Buzz means Facebook and Google are on a collision course:
Buzz is Google’s boldest attempt to build a social network that can compete with Facebook and Twitter. The service is built into Gmail, which already has 176 million users, according to comScore, a market research company. And Buzz comes with a built-in circle of friends, a group that is automatically selected by Google based on the people that a user communicates with most frequently in Gmail and on Google’s chat service.
But not everyone sees Buzz as an instant hit. Mitch Wagner, in ComputerWorld, sees problems ahead for Buzz:
It’s easy to see why Google built Buzz. Google wants to compete with Twitter and Facebook. What’s difficult to figure out is why people will want to use Google Buzz, when they can already use Twitter, Facebook, and a variety of other services to do the same thing. I hate to be a buzzkill, but I think Google Buzz will join the heap of failed Google services.
Check out buzz for yourself: Google Buzz.
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