Google Gets a Little More Social with Buzz
By tying a new social networking tool to Gmail, Google hopes to speed up adoption.
Google has revealed
its latest foray into the social space: a tool called Google Buzz that integrates with Gmail.
The basic
idea is similar to the feed on a Facebook user’s home page: Buzz allows a user to see a stream of comments, links, photos, and videos that have been shared with
friends. But while the interface looks familiar, Google could have a real
advantage in tying Buzz to other successful products to beef up its functionality
and adoption. The company also seems to have been working hard to identify and solve
several problems inherent to existing social networks.
Gmail users will be automatically subscribed to 40 people based on their e-mail
and chat behavior. The Buzz page (already available to some users) will show items shared by these people, and it will also recommend items that a user might
be interested in, even if those items were posted in their extended network. As with
Twitter, a Buzz user can direct an item to a specific person by using an
@reply. This sends the item to the friend’s inbox, where it
functions as a “live object,” updating in real-time as others comment on it.
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Whenever social
sites like Twitter are discussed, the issue of signal-to-noise typically comes
up, and Google seems to have a plan for that too: using location
information to help decide which posts are most relevant to a user.
Buzz will
also help users control who sees the items they share. Todd Jackson, product
manager for Google Buzz, notes that “many users use one product to share
things publicly and a separate product to share things privately.” Buzz,
on the other hand, has been built with a user interface that makes it easier to flip
back and forth between public and private, in the hope that users will use it to perform both
functions.
Google has also
announced three efforts to promote Buzz on mobile phones. First: a mobile app
for both the iPhone and Android; second: links to Buzz on Google’s mobile home
page; and third: integration of Buzz with Google Mobile Maps so that users can
see items posted near a location. For the mobile versions of Buzz, users can also choose whether to have Google
rank posts based on social considerations or proximity. Selecting the
“nearby” option within Buzz shows items posted near the user’s current
location, regardless of whether they were posted by a friend.
Google says that Buzz will
reach most Gmail users within the next few days; the mobile application is available at buzz.google.com.
During a press conference held in Mountain View, executives said there were many great
opportunities to integrate Buzz with Google Wave. But to my
eye Buzz takes many of the attractive features of Wave offered and pulls them
into products that people actually use. This seems like a better way of
executing these ideas.
The announcement also demonstrates the keenness of Google’s recent push into
real-time search. Google executives have said in the past that it’s hard to
determine the best ways to rank tweets. But having better access to information
on user’s social behavior will help the company rank trending items on its
search page (which is, after all, still its main product).
