From its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters Tuesday morning, Google executives announced a service described as “a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting.” Google Buzz, rolling out in the next few days, is the search giant’s latest push into the social media fray – Buzz allows Gmail users to integrate photos, video and links from their favourite social media sites into a new tool on the email service.
Product manager Todd Jackson explained the five main features of Buzz: You can automatically track the people you email and chat with on a regular basis, meaning you can view media content they are sharing – media can be shared from other networks, such as viewing Flickr photos in your inbox, showing up as preview pics in your email. Clicking on a pic will blow it up to fill the browser window.
Also, you will be able to share content from around the Web, including YouTube videos, Flickr and Picasa photos, site links and other media. You can find the Google Buzz notes right in your Gmail inbox, where they’re marked with a special icon that looks like a cartoon text bubble filled with Google’s signature primary colors.
Content can be shared publicly or privately, so you can set up which of your friends can see what. Also, you can get “social updates” in your inbox, similar to a tweet or Facebook status update (example: “David Silverberg is listening to Miles Davis right now, and smiling widely”). These updates, and the shared content, be “liked” (or voted up), similar to what Facebook allows.
Another bonus is that Google will help you find things that matter most to you by recommending popular content from the Buzz network (not only from your friends).
The New York Times noted a few disadvantages: “Instead of being able to connect to all of your Facebook friends on Buzz, you can mostly connect only to folks within Gmail’s walled garden. While your Buzz posts can go out to your Twitter account, messages from the people that you follow on Twitter don’t come into the Buzz world.”
Also, the mobile version of Buzz can geo-locate where you are and show you nearby Buzz posts.
A Google blog post fleshes out some of the details: “To make sure you don’t miss out on the best part of sharing, Buzz sends responses to your posts straight to your inbox. Unlike static email messages, buzz messages in your inbox are live conversations where comments appear in real time.”
Buzz reminded several attending journalists of Facebook, and one reporter asked Google co-founder Sergey Brin if the Google team brought up the F-word during their meetings about Buzz.
Brin ignored the question about Facebook and said, “We look at this as a part of a longer term evolution, and we’re trying to put together the best set of features, both from a technical point of view, and from a social point of view.”
Bradley Horowitz, Google’s Vice President for product Management, said this first version of Buzz is just the beginning: “We are launching this today because we’re just getting started. There’s so much opportunity to wire this up to other parts of Google and the Net, and we’re going to do that.”
Buzz will soon be visible to Gmail users under the Inbox tab. The Times found out that Google Buzz will only “appear as an option to about 1 percent of Gmail users as of Tuesday. Over the course of the week, it will roll out to all users.”
By that time, users can then link their Twitter, Flickr, Picasa, and Google Reader accounts to Buzz streams to display info produced by friends on those networks, as well as updates posted directly to the Buzz stream.
“It has become a core belief of ours that organizing the social information on the Web is a Google-scale problem,” said Todd Jackson, Gmail product manager, at the event.
Media-sharing goes a step further by allowing users to not only “follow” what their friends are up to, but also allow Buzz to recommend content offered by people who they don’t know. Google’s algorithm will be able to determine which recommended content a user enjoys and will train itself to more often display media someone prefers.
Then there’s Buzz for Google Maps, adding another layer of innovation to the location service. You can see Buzz posts on sites found on Maps, and you can post your own reviews as well. Also, you can visit a Place Page to read recent comments or to post your own Buzz about an area or venue.
Google describes the usefulness of Buzz for mobile: “Now, you can use Buzz to learn that there is going to be a movie night at your favorite park, share with the world that there is an awesome ice cream place right around the corner, or tell your friends about that delicious homemade lasagna.”
Brin said this social service is poised to gain traction. “Past services have focused simply on just friends and entertainment. I found Buzz to be hugely productive internally and we think enriching [productivity] is very powerful.”
With Buzz, Google wants to organize the world’s information while also going up against social media powerhouses like Facebook. While Buzz integrates Twitter, there’s no word yet on linking up with Facebook Connect. In fact, at the event Google executives didn’t dare say Facebook’s name.
Facebook is already replacing email for many people, so Buzz may be Google’s latest attack against Zuckerberg’s company. While Google Wave didn’t go as viral as Google might have hoped, Brin et al. are banking on Buzz to become the hub for media-sharing.
The social media circus just got more interesting. Google is still the the Web’s most-visited site, with 173 million U.S. visitors in December, according to ComScore Media Metrix. Facebook is closing in at fourth, with 111.8 million visitors. Will Buzz give Google an even steeper advantage?
