Google Buzz – What Happened to Google Wave?

February 10, 2010 · Filed Under google · 4 Comments 

Recently Google announced the release of yet another product, Google Buzz.

Watch a recording of the Google Buzz launch event. Be warned – it’s about an hour long.

What Google Buzz allows you to do is share updates, videos, photos, RSS feeds “and more”.  If you think this sounds a lot like Facebook you’re right…sort of.

The difference between Google Buzz and Facebook is that Google Buzz is integrated into your Gmail account which means that you can share updates and other pieces of information with the people who you already email and chat with within Gmail.

When you add a website link within Buzz, it will automatically pull photos from that link that you can share, plays videos “inline” meaning you don’t have to leave Gmail in order to view the video.

What I found most interesting was that you can connect to sites “that you already use” such as Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader and Twitter.

But what struck me the most was that this list of “what you already use” programs, is that Facebook is missing.

And, perhaps what is most interesting of all, is that Buzz shows you posts that “may interest you” or that “are popular among your friends”.

Now, I’m not exactly sure where the line falls with the whole “posts that may interest you” bit…perhaps it will be advertising?  Could we be looking at a potential new market for PPC?  I honestly don’t know but it was such a broad statement that it leads me to believe that Google left it broad for a very good reason.

When you first get Buzz within your Gmail account it will “auto-follow” those that you chat and email the most.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I do happen to send (and receive) quite a few emails to people for business related reasons through Gmail and really don’t want these people to see my status updates.  Status updates, like in Facebook for example, can be set to lists.  Does Buzz offer lists?  Again, I don’t know (yet).

But…this post isn’t all about just what I don’t know about Google Buzz…here’s some things that I do know:

There’s an app for your iPhone or Android.

You can visit Buzz at http://buzz.google.com.

Buzz will find your location (if you give it permission to) so that others can see where you’re located at any given moment.

Back to speculations…

Now, there’s quite a few people that think this is the greatest thing since sliced bread and others who believe it will be a total flop.

Personally, I am apprehensive about it.  I like Facebook – I prefer Facebook simply because I like to keep things separated.  All of my friends are on Facebook – and these aren’t folks that I necessairly email or chat with in my Gmail account.

Plus, my personal Facebook account isn’t necessarily “professional”.  At Facebook I can create professional groups or pages where I do discuss more professional topics…but within Gmail, everyone’s grouped together.

To be honest, I rarely use email any longer to communicate with friends and family since…drum roll please…they’re all on Facebook (even my mother).

So I’m not personally excited about it – because it means one more extra thing I’ll have to keep track of and use.  And frankly, Facebook does just fine for me.

All that said, where then does Google Wave come into play?

It was my knowledge that Google Wave was the way to share information like videos, links, photos and such with people who were located in your Wave.

So I don’t understand the difference between Buzz and Wave.  Do you?  If you do, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Here’s a quick introductory video of Buzz if you’re interested.

Now, not all current Gmail users have Buzz integrated yet into their Gmail account, but they’re rolling it out to everyone as quick as they can.

I honestly don’t know if I’ll use Buzz at all.  There’s always a “new” thing with Google and until I hear that it’s working wonders in some way with others, then I’ll be pretty slow to jump on the bandwagon.  I only have so much time in my day and if I jumped on every new Google release I wouldn’t get anything done.

Now…if they do decide to integrate your Facebook contacts, and allow you to create lists of people so that you can only update those lists, I’ll definitely take a second look (but…maybe they do; again I don’t know because I don’t yet have it in my Gmail account).

Have you gotten “Buzzed” yet in your Gmail account?

Will you use it yourself?

What are your thoughts?

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