What’s all the Google Buzz?

Being a social media enthusiast, I’ve been curious about all of the ‘buzz’ surrounding Google’s Buzz launch on February 9th. I finally witnessed the ‘Buzz’ yesterday (it was rolled out in waves­­—pun intended) when logging in my iGoogle (here in Philly we’ve been battling ‘Snowmageddon 2010’ since last Wednesday so, I’ve been a little busy shoveling out). Apparently, I missed a lot over the weekend!

Turns out there was a lot of ‘buzz’ over the weekend with the ‘auto-follow’ feature which is now disabled (when originally launched, Buzz automatically would have ‘followed’ my most frequently emailed or chatted contacts in Gmail – something I definitely wouldn’t want made public!!)

As I was looking at it yesterday, I was thinking, “What’s the big deal?” Yeah, sure, I use Google Reader daily (hourly, more like it) to stay on top of all the news that interests me (or stuff I find funny – btw I’ve been following *%$# My Dad Says waaaaayyy before he got that sitcom deal – he’s still funny as *%$#). And, sure I’ve use Google Docs to share work projects, I literally can’t live without Google Maps and I’ve had my Gmail account for a while now…but, what’s all the Buzz?

The interface seems pretty basic and right now I have two followers (one I don’t even know??) and I searched and am following four people (a.ka. random friends). Buzz didn’t recommend anyone to follow like Google stated it would, but I don’t really keep my Gmail contacts up-to-date. So far…little activity…little “buzz” on my end, but it’s only been about twelve hours since I started poking around, so I’m not bashing the Buzz. Just trying to figure out (like many of you) another tool in my social media arsenal. What I’ve researched and learned is boiled down to:

• Buzz links all the people who use Gmail (which is at 176 millions users according to comScore‑so there’s a built-in audience already)
• Google stated there has been over 9 million posts and comments in its first 56 hours of launching
• There have been over 200 mobile check-ins per minute (that’s nearly 300,000 mobile check-ins per day).

Speaking of mobile…so Buzz is available on the iPhone and Droid 2.0 (rolling out to other Mdevices shortly) – and what can you do with that?

• You can look up who is buzzing ‘nearby’ and share info about where you are/what you’re doing (ie. “I’m at Philly Cupcake!!!” My friend’s ‘buzz’ to me: “Oh grab me a strawberry shortcake one!!” (Ed Note: If you’re in Philly and haven’t had the deliciousness of Philly Cupcake, you’re seriously missing out on one of life’s great pleasures…but, I digress.)
• You can post Buzz tagged items with your location so that people know where you frequent and why.
• Keep up with who you’re following (and who is following you) through the mobile Buzz interface.
• Comment or ‘like’ other people’s Buzz.
• There’s a Buzz layer on Google Maps so you can view what’s going on in a glance.
• Read Buzz about places you’re interested in.
• Click the Buzz icon on the top of the Google navigation bar to open up the posting box.
• Say ‘post buzz’ to your iPhone (still not sure what this accomplishes).

Areas I see that are of concern to me (and lots of others):

• Privacy (big concept within all the social media sharing technology) – of course Google is already responding to many concerns and is making ‘private’ and ‘public’ features already. Time will tell (and I’m talking social media time = minutes vs. days) with this area. See BusinessWeek article.
• Getting people to use another social media tool. (Although I tend to agree that since it’s interwoven with Gmail, people are going to test it out, especially us technerds…early adopters.)

Areas I see as huge potential for advertising initiatives:

• Gmail advertising is already so prevalent it only makes sense that “buzz” advertising would take off.
• Since it’s an open platform, I’m expecting a tidal wave of new apps being developed.
• I really like Ben Parr’s idea of an ad revenue share for Buzz apps and its own app store to monetize this platform would be a win-win.

Only two things I’m wondering right now…is it “buzz” or “Buzz?” And is Todd Jackson getting any sleep? Poor guy. I don’t think this past weekends’ buzz was what he’d anticipated. Stay positive, Todd! Everything new always needs tweaking!