I haven’t had an opportunity yet to really dig deep into Google Buzz but for all the talk about how Buzz is all about addressing the noise/signal problem within social media, one thing that Buzz does highlight is Google’s mediocre record when it comes to social media – something highlighted by Fortune Magazine’s Jessi Hempel.
Sure, Blogger is one of the leading blogging platforms but you could argue that Google has done much with it over the years. Orkut is a raging success in Brazil but it’s an ugly sister compared with Facebook and MySpace.
When Google co-founder Sergey Brin was asked today about Google’s lack of social media success, he danced around and suggested that Google has had “a lot of success”, adding that Buzz has potential to bring social communications and productivity closer together.
“I think a lot of past services have focused on just friends and entertainment,” he said during a press conference today.
I guess Brin doesn’t see Twitter as a productivity tool even though it has become a great way to discover new services and content, as well conduct R&D, generate feedback and handle customer service.
What are your thoughts about Buzz? Are you buzzed about Buzz? If so, why?
2 Comments
From what I've seen so far – yes, I'm very excited about Buzz. (no, I don't have it enable yet either).
The big three for me:
1. Sits right in my gmail console where I spend a large part of my day
2. Eliminates the arbitrary 140 character limit
3. They claim that it's going to be a twitter client in the future – sure hope it's a good enough implementation that I can kill off another background process (sorry tweetdeck…)
I think it's big strength and weakness are the same – the use of your Google contacts to create your Buzz social network. That provides a ready-made, immediate network (as so gets over the Twitter-style problem: I've created an account, but now what?). But on the other hand, are the people you exchange emails with really the group of people you want to network with, particularly if you are a heavy email user?
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