The hot topic of the past week or so has been Google’s new venture into the Social Media arena – Google Buzz.

The idea behind Buzz is to have the ability to put what you want into status updates such as photos, links and videos and share these easily with your email contacts and those you follow. You can even import status updates from other Social Media websites such as Twitter, Google Reader and Picasa.

First Impressions

First impressions haven’t been great around the world for poor ole Buzz. The platform has been met with large amounts of criticism over privacy and lack of functionality instead of excitement of a “Twitter Killer”.

Privacy has been a real issue with Google already being sued over the matter. Within 2 days, Google were forced to update Buzz with a privacy fix so those not connected to you cannot discover your details and activity. This is a massive concern for a lot of people and Google have addressed the issue swiftly – although it should never have really happened in the first instance.

For me, the privacy issue was not a big deal. The usability experience of the platform isn’t necessarily straight forward though. The whole following users and contacts came across as somewhat confusing and in typical Google fashion, the details have not been explained sufficiently.

Another area I don’t quite comprehend is why the oh-so public Buzz has integrated with the private walled garden feel of Gmail? When I’m typing my messages, I find I want to simply keep things within my following as opposed to sharing with the public – something I’d happily do on Twitter. Strange how a setting can change a perspective.

In addition to the above, I import my Gmail into Outlook so have to go out of my way to view Buzz. I wonder if Tweetdeck will provide an update sometime soon… Google would certainly benefit from this!

My finally criticism is the way the stream itself becomes cluttered and even some-what irrelevant. If a user replies to a comment, the whole post and all replies are bumped to the top of your feed. I want to see the latest updates. I don’t want to see the most popular topical post. If I wanted that, I would go to a forum.

As an overall early impression, Buzz is like that annoying wasp that continuously zips in and out of your peaceful day as opposed to a bee that gets on with making more honey.

Will Google Buzz be Successful?

Successful may not be the word. Maybe ‘popular’ would be a better choice. Either way, it is early days and any prediction would be premature. Google have launched the product after admitting they did not test this with smaller groups of users and as such, have paid with the swarm (pun intended) of criticism flying their way.

The lack of functionality makes the platform feel rushed and many blogs are posting their Google Buzz wish lists already. The platform doesn’t feel innovative in any way shape or form and simply a reaction to the threat of Facebook / Twitter et al stealing market share away from them.

To me, this is just another of many gimmicks to which Google have released in recent months with little thought. If this keeps up, a reputation of low quality will hang above the company and they will come across as – phrase of the moment in the run up to the UK election – “out-of-touch”.

I have no doubt Google Buzz will have its place in the Social Media spectrum. It certainly can’t be ignored. You want to be going where the ball rolls and while the hype (negative or positive) around Google Buzz still going strong, the ball is slowly rolling in their direction. How much of the sweet sticky pie they can eventually take is another matter. My bet is not much.

Photo Credit: Patrick Doheny