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Is This Why Google Created Buzz?
By now most people within the sound of this blog post have already heard about Google’s launch of Google Buzz. The service, which is amazingly similar to Friendfeed, basically brings together a person’s (or brand) social activity from across the Web and allows their friends (or customers) the ability to vote and comment on items.
Most of the people I’ve had discussions with regarding buzz all seem to agree that Google placed Buzz inside of Gmail for the “instant userbase”. One of the reasons that Google Wave has seemed to not grab users interest is that it’s on a separate website which creates a need for Google to market the service to users. By jamming it directly inside of one of the most popular email services, Gmail, they instantly have the userbase that Friendfeed never was able to achieve. Even though many of us have talked about a social network inside of email for years, it still seems a bit odd. Perhaps it will become more familiar over time. Sadly now I need to use Gmail even though I very much prefer Yahoo Mail (except when they don’t deliver my mail for hours or days).
<begin crazy theory mode>
Back in November, Adam Ostrow from Mashable and Caroline McCarthy from Cnet wrote about a partnership between Twitter and Google which would allow Google access to the content on Twitter. McCarthy noted, “Google and Twitter have cut a deal where Google is essentially licensing a data feed from Twitter to get that information in search results.”
It appears that Google is paying several million dollars for this data feed. Now that Google has launched Buzz and you can add your public Twitter datastream into Buzz, is there a need for Google to pay for the data feed?
Naturally it’s easy to say that not every Gmail user will use Buzz and those that do may not include their Twitter feeds. But with Gmail having a larger installed userbase than Twitter and with (my speculation) a near 1:1 overlap in users, might the Buzz Twitter stream get Google pretty close to the data feed? In addition, by using the Google Buzz Twitter stream, it gives Google a better way to rank tweets in search results rather than just a person’s Twitter follower counts and simple usage patterns.
In addition, it would allow Google to basically push the search results into Buzz instead of to Twitter.
<end crazy theory mode>
So am I crazy or not?
@Alain Saffel,
No one is talking about Google Wave? No one is talking about it because they are using it.
Just little colleges though, like Yale, Northwestern, USC, ASU and Notre Dame. I have two links from PhDs that have emailed me with links to how their class rooms are using Gwave for collaboration and notes.
Google is not about killing Facebook or Twitter, FB and TT seem quite able to go the way of MySpace on their own. Twitter is now over run with autofollow robots and Facebook is infected with yet another porn virus.
Google is about the long tail, not today. Change comes slowly albeit much faster on the web. Google is about the corporate side that is using Gwave heavily and Colleges that are growing up Google.
Buzz is about conversations, and I myself have reconnected with so many of my social friends that otherwise would have been lost in a sea of spam elsewhere.
Lastly, the only reason Facebook and Twitter gained such dominance in the last year was with the Ashton Kutcher / CNN / Oprah race. That caused CNN to start suggesting you follow them on TT and FB every five minutes and everyone else has done the same.
I’m clueless about how Google is integrating Twitter into Buzz, but could it be that they are using their several million dollar Twitter search deal to power the Twitter connection to Buzz? Perhaps the two are already related and the deal was struck so that they could use it for their eventual roll out of Buzz.
I have barely used Google Buzz and I’m thinking of dropping it. Why? I’m seeing the same crap I see elsewhere, so why would I want it? My networks in Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere are far larger than in Gmail. Why do we need to duplicate everything?
Buzz won’t be replacing Facebook or Twitter. Dream on Google. It’s going to go the same way as Google Wave and Knol. Anyone talking about Wave lately? Knol? I think Knol is completely dead.
You all said:
>> I very much prefer Yahoo Mail (except when they don’t deliver my mail for hours or days
That is why I hate Yahoo as an email delivery consultant. Hotmail and Yahoo have become delivery nightmares for legit email newsletters and have been for years. Gmail by far is my preferred address.
>> When you add the Gbuzz data stream and allow inline questions for the “cloud” to answer you have a pretty sticky app.
Brilliant freakin thinking Tripp.
>> I also had to stop following a person in Buzz because I was getting all of their twitter feed in buzz which was just too much link spam without any real conversation.
I just did a YouTube video on this urging my readers to remove FriendFeed from their Google profiles and Twitter from their Buzz stream. Want Buzz to improve, educate your followers to better theirs.
I think that just the way how Google do the business. quick acquisition and integration. Make all the things seems possible and then after all the media hype they response. It’s just like a free marketing for them.
I actually removed my Twitter feed from Buzz because of the way they handle it. It updates so infrequently that you get a wall of tweets like once an hour or something. Kind of like people who use TwitterFeed recklessly.
interesting – Jolie seemed to say the same thing – I haven’t hooked up Twitter to Buzz.
I think what we see with Google Buzz right now is just the tip of the iceberg. When you already have a user base like Gmail does and you figure out a way to roll in a service like Buzz with that user base, the potential is endless. There’s endless amounts of ways this could possibly play out but you have to assume Google has something big in mind and this is just the start. The Aardvark acquisition just adds fire to the fuel!
Anyone else noticing that Google Buzz is handling Twitter integration terribly? With some of my followers I don’t see updates for half a day after they update Twitter. Today Buzz also decided to pull in a tweet from well over a month ago and posted in it Buzz as if it was posted at 9am this morning.
If they are paying for access to the Twitter firehose then why the long delays and other problems.
I also had to stop following a person in Buzz because I was getting all of their twitter feed in buzz which was just too much link spam without any real conversation. (The main reason I don’t use twitter much anyways) If there had been an option to just turn off this person’s twitter feed I would have done that but my only option was to stop following them completely
dont forget about the aardvark acquisition! When you add the Gbuzz data stream and allow inline questions for the “cloud” to answer you have a pretty sticky app. (and a heck of a lot of data about user interests to target ads to)
It’s crazy because the amount of money Google pays to Twitter is what falls out of Sergey’s pocket when he takes off his pants.