Introducing Google Buzz

Just as Google once conquered web searches with its search algorithm, PageRank, Google is now attempting to conquer social networking with its newest product, Google Buzz.

Google Buzz, unveiled last Tuesday, is built into the company's popular webmail client, Gmail. Currently, first time users are shown a walkthrough to add friends on their Gmail contact list and add sharing services. Not only can users post status updates through Gmail, users can also share photos from Picasa, videos from YouTube, and links to websites from Reader. Users can even utilize third-party services like Twitter.


"Our goal is to make Buzz a fully open and distributed platform for conversations," stated a Google press release. "We're building on a suite of open protocols to create a complete read/write developer API, and we invite developers to join us on Google Code to see what is available today and to learn more about how to participate."


Like the follow feature in Twitter, Buzz users can "follow" friends to keep track of their status updates. Users can comment on these updates within the Gmail accounts. Users are given the option to share items privately with their friends or publicly with all users. However, in a Google twist on social networking, power users who like using keyboard shortcuts to access Gmail can do the same in Google Buzz.


Google Buzz can also be found on Google Maps for mobile devices. A recent update for Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android devices allows users to post status updates that are geotagged. Users can also access Google Buzz on their phones at buzz.google.com.


However, some analysts argue that Google's efforts are not enough to compete with the top three social networking sites: Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. "While bringing relevance filtering to the noisy social media world could prove a significant advantage, this doesn't -- yet -- seem to be enough to pull people away from the networks they've already created elsewhere," wrote Forrester Research analyst Augie Ray in a statement to Macworld.

With approximately 200 million combined unique monthly visits between the three social networking sites, Google Buzz faces a formidable challenge.