What’s the buzz about Google Buzz?

16th Feb 2010 A passion and truth by Mark

Social media is, as I’m sure you’re aware, kind of a big deal. Facebook now has 400 million users worldwide meaning if it was a country it would be the 4th largest in the world. Twitter usage has increased to the point where one in five Americans use Twitter and other similar services. So it’s perhaps been surprising to see Google lagging behind in this area.

But it was only a matter of time, and it’s not like they’ve been twiddling their thumbs. Outside of social media they’ve moved into the browser wars with Google Chrome and last weekend they re-asserted their status as number one search engine with a $5million Superbowl TV ad. And now they’ve taken the fight into social media with the launch of Google Buzz.

This isn’t Google’s first attempt at social media. Orkut was launched in 2004 and subsequently became massively popular in Brazil and India but crucially failed to take off in North America. This scuppered Google’s hopes to bring social networking into its search engine, forcing it to instead to purchase access to Twitter’s search results to bring more real time updates into its core search offering.

‘Real time’ was one of the dominant trends during 2009, and nowhere did this trend manifest itself more than with social media. It’s ingrained in human nature to share experiences but the rise of link-sharing sites such as tiny.cc and bit.ly (which allow people to share URLs in a shorter form, important for Twitter’s 140 character limit) show that social media users are increasingly sharing content as well. And the importance of social media for newsgathering is such that Sky News employees have had Twitter apps installed on their desktops and a new BBC Director has told his staff they’re not doing their job properly if they don’t make use of it. In the US, Facebook & Twitter have now overtaken Google News as the primary traffic source for news sites.

Advertisers are also finding ways to use social media for marketing purposes. Recent innovative examples being IKEA’s use of Facebook, Best Buy’s Twitter Twelpforce and Lufthansa’s MySkyStatus.

So, it’s clear why Google wants a piece of the pie, but what’s different about Google Buzz? Firstly, it’s tied into Gmail, Google’s webmail service, which currently has over 150 million users worldwide. Secondly it’s not an opt-in service; all Gmail users are automatically signed up and connected with the people they email and chat with the most. No other social network has started in this way, with the new tool being visible in the one place people check online the most, their email inbox. As Mashable’s Pete Cashmore points out, Google Buzz can “achieve critical mass virtually overnight” without breaking a sweat, something the other networks have spent a lot of time and money to achieve.

Google’s sights are squarely aimed at convergence, a place where you can do everything, combining social networking and email into one application. Status updates, photos, videos and map locations are folded into email conversations, allowing people to comment and discuss Buzz updates both publicly and privately. It’s on a mobile where Buzz really comes to life, allowing users to geo-tag their Buzzes with location information, and then view Buzz updates (even from people they don’t know) overlaid onto a map.

So in summary, it’s a mix of Facebook’s sharing and interacting with close friends, Twitter’s broadcasting in real-time, and Foursquare’s geo-tagging. How Buzz integrates with these established networks might be key to its success, with users keen to avoid visiting multiple networks to keep up with all their contacts. At this time, however, Twitter integration is only supported in one direction, and the world’s largest social network, Facebook, is missing altogether.

Buzz’s other barrier is that people still regard email as their private place online, and despite recent well publicised criticism of Facebook’s privacy and opt-in mistakes, Buzz seems to be making the same errors straight away. This latter issue caused something of a backlash to stir up within just a few days (hours even) of the launch, something Google’s quickly responded to correct. Established social networks started from simple beginnings and were formed and shaped over time by the people who used them. For example, Twitter’s conventions of @ replies and # tagging were initiated by users themselves not Twitter. But Google Buzz is coming ready formed with a 150 million plus user base that don’t know what they’re doing. There aren’t any experienced users to help you out, teach you the conventions and show you the ropes. Everyone’s a newbie on Google Buzz.

Meanwhile, brands have also been taking tentative steps into Buzz, notably Samsung. But it remains unclear at the moment how Google Buzz can be used from a commercial point of view. Its audience is obviously restricted to the (admittedly enormous) Gmail userbase, a demographic that tends to be younger and more technology-minded. This market would obviously be of great interest to a lot of brands, but many are still grappling with the possibilities offered by Facebook and Twitter. That said, the signs are there that social media is starting to become big business and recent deals set up by the other notable social media newbie, Foursquare, show that this process is speeding up as both users and advertisers become more social media savvy.

That said, and despite the teething problems, in just two days Buzz achieved over 9 million posts and comments - that’s over 160,000 comments and posts per hour. Mashable is predicting Buzz’s open platform will lead to a plethora of apps and websites serving this vast new audience. Clearly with the weight of the world’s largest technology company behind it and 150 million users, a lot can be achieved in a short space of time and for that reason, it remains for us one to watch.

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