Is Google Buzz the New Facebook? Not hardly.
Tuesday saw Google’s latest attempt to be a social media contender come alive in the form of Google Buzz: a social media sharing service built into your Gmail window. Buzz allows you to share photos, links, videos, and status updates through your Gmail inbox, and is also compatible with many mobile devices’ Web browsers.
Is Google Buzz a truly new concept? Of course not. Microsoft and Yahoo have offered similar functionality for years; Microsoft through their ‘Web Activities’ on theWindows Live profile ( with around 75 services you can add including Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and Picasa) - Windows Live posts your activity to your public profile, and lets you view the activities of others Yahoo profiles work the same way.
Google does supply an autofollow list of people for you, which may please or irritate you. Buzz claims to be open, but you can’t post anything to Twitter or Facebook from Buzz. Buzz is also a huge clutter in your inbox – making many people try to disable or ‘mute’ the app.
One more thing – the autofollow selects people you email or chat with most – and can’t differentiate between business associates or friends.
Pluses to Buzz include the Twitter like function that doesn’t confine you to 140 characters, and the ability to keep a kind of dialogue going with people you can instantly pick up the conversation in chat with.
Will Buzz replace Facebook or Twitter? No. Will it be a fun app for people who love nothing better than socializing online? Probably.
I won’t be using Google Buzz, simply because I have enough social apps on my plate, but it may be a good networking tool once Google manages to work some of the kinks out of it.
Tags: Facebook, Google Buzz, Twitter