Gmail Goes Social With Google Buzz

Recently, Google finished unveiling its latest ‘social innovation’ at an event held at their Mountain View Headquarters. Google Buzz! Social Networking is clearly the buzz word on the Internet and with Orkut, OpenSocial struggling to keep up with the likes of Facebook and Twitter, Google is looking to this new product to match them. Given that mobile web is that other exciting area, Buzz has been developed with a strong mobile element.

The Gmail Part

Gmail already has a huge user base about 176 million unique visitors per month (source:comScore) and Google is cleverly tapping into this base by adding Buzz to Gmail. When it is eventually rolled out to everyone, you will see a Buzz just below Inbox. Like any other Social Network, Buzz is essentially a stream of updates. Except that is not limited to status updates alone. It supports Inline video viewing and Images as well. It also takes advantage of the open web and can link up with Google Reader, Picasa, Flickr and Twitter. It does not yet allow you to update Twitter, but Google hinted that this may be possible in the future.

Privacy options can be set to share your updates with everyone or to a select group of people. Buzz aims to make your life simpler by auto-following people you interact with regularly over email/chat. Only drawback here is it can end up following people who may not necessarily be on your social radar (your Boss?). Google’s mission is ‘to organize the world’s information’, so why should the Social Web be an exception? It is believed that Buzz will filter(autohide) content that does not get commented on, thus only showing you the ‘good stuff’.

For updates that do get commented on, Buzz makes sure you wont miss out anything thanks to real time updates and email alerts. It also allows you to reply directly from your inbox. You can direct comments at someone by using @ tags, and they will be notified via emails too. Buzz also recommends updates from people you do not follow based on whether it thinks that a certain Buzz will interest you or not.

Buzz on your Mobile

It is hard to imagine any social feature succeeding without a mobile dimension and Google is certainly not taking any chances. It will be accessible from Google’s Mobile Website, Buzz.Google.Com (on Android and iPhone) and Google Maps. When you Buzz on-the-go you can add location tags to your updates(Foursquare checkins?) or even read what your friends have said about a place. This is different from Google Latitude in that it relies on Naming the place instead of its coordinates.

Scope?

Despite being a fairly decent collaboration tool, Google Wave suffered due its ‘perceived complexity’ hopefully Buzz will sidestep that problem. Buzz is a very ambitious project by Google. While it does seem to have all the raw materials(borrowed and not) that could go into making a great social tool, whether it delivers as a finished product, that can challenge Facebook, remains to be seen. comScore could give us the answer in a few months.

During a very interesting Q&A session (courtesy TechCrunch) when asked about a Facebook Connect, the response from Sergey Brin was – ‘Nothing to announce at this time – but we’ll think about it’

Google is still in the process of rolling Buzz out in phases to Gmail users. So if you don’t see it yet. Patience!

You can catch the Google Buzz Video

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi50KlsCBio

and the Mobile Video

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-kcVDNi6eg