Lock up your daughters the “big boy” is coming to crash the social party!
What is Google Buzz? The same as Yahoo Buzz? Or the next flop (wave)? Well it’s “a Google approach to social sharing,” Google Buzz takes the features we know and love from Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, Flickr and creates an automated social alert and collaboration feature built within Gmail.
Google has just launched their new social platform, Buzz, which is now rolling out across the web. This is Google’s latest attempt to ride the current wave of social networking trends. And to be honest there are mixed reviews from the Switched On Media team.
Alex (Head of Search), “I feel this is another blown attempt, just like Friend Connect, Lively, Orkut and Wave which all never took off. I’m sure neither Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey are losing any sleep.”
Phil (SEO Specialist), “I like Buzz, I think it’s a great idea and the automated features combined with the fact that I don’t have to set anything up further prompts me to use it! I do, however think it’s not a terrific threat to the current market leaders in Social Media.”
Yahoo give their 2 cents with a Tweet that SLAMMED Buzz:
“Two years after #Yahoo! launched #Buzz, Google follows suit. Check out the original: http://buzz.yahoo.com/ “
And, Microsoft said in an official statement on Google Buzz:
“Busy people don’t want another social network, what they want is the convenience of aggregation. We’ve done that. Hotmail customers have benefitted from Microsoft working with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and 75 other partners since 2008.”
Ok, so mixed reviews, but how is Google Buzz different from our favorite networks like Facebook and Twitter? Well, its kind of the same really, Buzz GMail users are able to contribute to buzz by sharing their content such as links, photos, videos, and even status updates. Users can even comment on and provide feedback to their friends’ posts just as on Facebook, and send “@mention” alerts to notify Tweeters!
Buzz is rolling out now, no Beta testing here, but will it cause a negative affect to Twitter or Facebook? Collectively, Switched On Media don’t think it will. Both Twitter and Facebook have committed a serious amount of time and users to obtaining their users and are not about to give them up them up without a fight, even if Google Buzz does present a “Mash-up” of their content.
Well, after seeing the “buzz” icon added to my gmail i decided to give it a try so far I’ve been using buzz for a couple of days but most of my contacts still haven’t got around to add it, so i think it probably take them a while to use buzz as their new social media marketing tool, it has great features with picassa though to share pictures and links but more people will need to join in order to get most out of it
cheers,
Jo