The Buzz on Google Buzz

If there's one maxim in the world of tech media you can count on it's that when Google sneezes, it's news. So when Google makes a bold move to create a next-generation social media platform, it's really big news. This week's announcement and debut of Google Buzz was met with the expected level of breathless hype and cataclysmic predictions. Longtime commentator and internet celeb Jason Calacanis was among the first to weigh in with an unequivocal first impression:

BREAKING: Google Buzz is brilliant, Facebook just lost half its value.

My 30 second review of Google Buzz:

1. Google Buzz 1.0 is better than Facebook after six or seven years.

2. Facebook’s history is one filled with stealing other people’s innovations and doing them better (i.e. Zuckerberg has stolen every idea Evan Williams and the Twitter team have released). How ironic now that Google has out “Facebooked” Facebook.

3. Google has excellent privacy record and Facebook is a disaster. Most folks do not trust Zuckerberg and Facebook any more because of their privacy record (filled with lawsuits) and because they steal every good idea they see (i.e. Twitter’s innovations and FourSquare’s checking in).

4. Google Buzz auto generates your network–this is MUCH better process than Facebook’s.

5. Google Buzz is way faster than the sluggish Facebook–this is a HUGE advantage.

6. Google Buzz puts relies and updates into your GMAIL as threads–this is BRILLIANT and a HUGE advantage.

Facebook is going to see their traffic get cut in half by Google Buzz.

This really is game over for Facebook because you know Microsoft and Aol are going to copy Google Buzz as quick as they can. In fact, Aol would have a HUGE renaissance if they simply knocked off Google Buzz’s exact feature set. You would than have a reason to keep your @aol email address.

This could actually derail the Facebook IPO. It’s that serious. Facebook usage is going to plummet in the next year or two because of this. There really is no reason for non-game playing people who useGMAIL to log into Facebook.

If Google Ads social gaming to Google Buzz Facebook is 2012’s Pointcast.

Wow…. this is just stunning.

The "Facebook-killer" meme spread quickly (check Google News for proof) but is this revolution, or evolution? Let's take a look at some of the key features, straight from Google themselves:

• Auto-following: You don't have to build or rebuild your friend network, it happens organically as you send and receive email.
• Rich, fast, sharing experience: It pulls together a stream of information from your friends, media, photos, comments, in a dynamic way that feels more like a conversation.
• Public and private sharing: Self-explanatory, though it's hard to see how this is a huge differentiatiator. Twitter is of course public, Facebook is mixed (and a bit opaque on this point), but nonetheless.
• Inbox integration: This is the "killer" that threatens to make this a killer app. Let's face it, how much patience do people have to join yet another social network, especially a very generalist/aggregating one like this. It's a tough hurdle to jump -- but boy does it help to have 176 million unique users a month and a war chest of about $32 Billion in cash. Or so I would have to imagine.
• "Just The Good Stuff": This sounds like marketing hype, and is to some extent, but they're aiming for at least some substance with this point. The social media feed is prioritized, at least according to their claims it shows you the posts and updates you're most likely to read, and buries the stuff you least likely to be interested in. An innovation, but interestingly also something that Facebook ramped up hard as well, just this month.

So then -- what's it like? Well here's a quick overview primer:

   

And their five marketing points above leave quite a bit out. Integration clearly is core to the philosphy, leveraging Google's basket of heavyweight online properties such as YouTube, Picasa, and Blogger. The mobile integration looks to be one of the most formidable aspects to Buzz, when coupled with a GPS enabled mobile phone it enables functions ranging from finding people near you (perhaps a little creepy) to your own private Google Map that's like a bookmarks bar for the real world, geotagging your camera phone shot so you can remember where that little out of the way dumpling place was next time you're in the neighborhood. 

OK, so back to Facebook's 400 million users and near total dominance of the core social network space. Is this a threat, a complement, an eventual also-ran? Here's a little more of what the experts are saying:

Techcrunch sums it up well:

The Battle  

Without having had a chance to play with it yet, it would seem that the core idea behind Buzz is to take on Twitter and Facebook as the easiest way to share content online. Google is offering a number of compelling features such as smart curation (it gets better as you tell it what you like and what you don’t), and a rich mobile experience including location.  

Because of the features it adds on to what Twitter does, and its overall look, it’s hard not to compare Buzz to FriendFeed. That service was arguably the better product than Twitter, but never took off in the same way for whatever reason (though I would argue that simplicity was a big factor). You could say the same thing for Twitter rivals Pownce and Jaiku (which Google actually bought) in the past. But by adding it to Gmail, Google is giving Buzz a great weapon to succeed where all of those others could not.  

The big question is: will Gmail users buy into this quick sharing? Google thinks so because it’s a part of the evolution from email, to IM, to status updates. It’s also, in their eyes, a part of the evolution to the next step, Google Wave. So far, the public has proven to be not ready for Wave yet. But Buzz might be the perfect tool in getting people to think about communicating in a way beyond email and IM. Or it may be another misstep in Google’s social quest.

Core social media news source Mashable is measured, tackling the "zero sum game" question head on, but ultimately concluding that "Buzz Won’t Win the Social Web Without Facebook Integration"

We ought to consider the consequences of Buzz’s relationships with Twitter and Facebook. What are the relationships? Will Buzz, Twitter and Facebook co-exist elegantly or is this a zero sum game with a winner you can place your bets on? 

... 

I predicted at the end of last year that Facebook is well-poised to try to pry web dominance away from Google in 2010. Buzz doesn’t change my mind. Facebook is threatening Google, but Google isn’t threatening Facebook because it doesn’t offer any features so great that they incentivize people to leave behind their existing networks or spend their time updating and following yet another one when their friends are already all on Facebook or Twitter.  Facebook now dominates the social web so completely that it’s difficult to imagine an exodus to a competing service, unless that service offered some revolutionary new features that Facebook couldn’t possibly match — Buzz doesn’t. 

I can picture one other success scenario, though: a service that aggregates other services’ features and content, and then offers up its own set of unique perks (like Buzz’s noise-control algorithms) that make the social web experience better. People would feel comfortable switching for the extra perks, because they wouldn’t have to leave their existing connections behind. 

The outlook could change if Buzz integrates with Facebook the way it does with Twitter. Unless that happens, though, you’re better off keeping your bets on Facebook in the coming year or two — at least if your standard of success is something greater than niche appeal.

And tech guru Kevin Rose is witholding judgement as well:

Not sure where Buzz fits in my arsenal of social media tools, how often I’ll use it, or if it will eventually feel too much like unread email — but I’m happy to see Google taking social media seriously. It’s early days, let the attention/follower wars begin.

Indeed, let the games begin -- my thoughts as well. This was what I wrote late Wednesday night as a first take, before I read what everyone else was saying:

10 minutes in. Snap reaction -- they've got this more right than wrong. It'll stick. I don't know if it's going to kill Facebook. It actually doesn't feel that much like Facebook to me -- but I have this feeling it's going to kill something.

It's a fast moving space to say the least -- in fact just as I finished writing this post I hit refresh and saw two new headlines pop up on (where else) Google News:

"Google Snags Social Search Service Aardvark" 

 and 

 "Google Buzz Surpasses 9 Million Posts and Comments" 

Nine million? Hmmmm.... this story is just a little over two days old. It's going to be interesting.

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