Google Buzz: why you should care…
For the past two days, the buzz is all over the web. It is still a global trending topic in Twitter (its competitor?) and most blogs have now shared their thoughts about Google’s latest baby: Google Buzz.
Google Buzz is Google’s latest initiative to take its slice of the social media cake. A new platform to share status updates, photos, locations, etc. Sounds familiar? Indeed, the concept is a mixture of Twitter + Facebook + Foursqurare. You’re already using two or three of these platforms and asking yourself why you should care? Why should you start posting status updates to yet another platform? Well read more and find out why I think you should at least pay attention to this new Buzz.
Some history and background: Google and the Social Media
If the iPhone has an app for everything, Google kinda have a web service for almost everything. They of course have search, gmail, gtalk, maps, earth, translate, picasa, reader, news, products, books, and many more… But check out Google Labs and you’ll realize that they even have much more that you thought. And keep it mind that most of their products come in a web and mobile versions. When it comes to Social Media however, it seems that Google never really succeeded in launching a dominant product. Yes there is Orkut ! But apart from India and Brazil where I believe it is still more popular than Facebook, Orkut never took off and can probably be considered a failure. Google Wave ? Well, the hype was huge after they announced it, but it now seems that apart from a beautiful interface, no one really knows what to do with it. We all drooled waithing for our Wave invite and got disappointed to realize that we only had one or two people we could use it with. Failure? Time will tell but definitely far from being a success yet.
Google Buzz is seamlessly integrated in Gmail
Well, as mentioned above, Buzz is a very straightforward tool to quickly “share what you’re thinking”. But the beauty is its integration in Gmail ! That literally means that without signing up for a new service (and remembering new URLs, usernames and passwords), 146 million (as of July 2009) Gmail users will instantly have access to this new service. This is huge! Facebook only reached 150 million active users in January 2009, that’s 5 years after they launched in Feb 2004 (source).
Google Buzz brings Twitter to the millions of non-geek non-twitter-user Gmail users
If Facebook took 5 years to reach 150 million users (they now have more than 400), Twitter only has around 20 million users today. You thought that Twitter was so big? Well that’s because their user base is made of geeks, bloggers and media professionals; and you’re probably one of them ! It is actually one of Twitter’s challenges today (together with identifying a revenue model) to pass that gasp and reach out to the mass markets. And now that Google Buzz allows you to connect your Buzz stream to your Twitter feed, it means that all your Gmail contacts will soon start seeing your tweets in their inbox. And all those Gmail contacts who have never used Twitter before will start commenting and reacting to your tweets, right there, in their inbox, or more specifically on Google Buzz, from their Gmail account. That is a huge potential and if Twitter did not manage to reach the average user, Google Buzz will bring your tweets to them and convert some of them into active buzzers.
They already have Facebook ?
True, your non-Twitter friends can already share their thoughts on Facebook, which by the way brings tons of additional features such as reconnecting with old schoolmates or ex-girlfriends, and playing social games online. But again, Buzz lies right their on their Gmail inbox so we all might very well start posting on it rather than opening a new tab on your browser. And since it is so well integrated with Gmail, your insignificant post might end up in a thrilling conversation carried on email.
Facebook will definitely survive and not even for a second do I believe that Google can take them over on the social media space. But Twitter might very well suffer from the launch of Google Buzz as this could prevent them from entering mass markets and grow above 25-40 million users. Existing tweeters will stay, new ones will rarify. And after Microsoft and Apple, Facebook could very well become Google’s third competitor, especially if Facebook launches their rumored webmail anytime soon…
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