Google today announced a new service, Google Buzz, that automatically brings social networking into Gmail and the rest of the Google-sphere. Whether or not you're big on social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook, Buzz offers a somewhat new and intriguing approach.
What's Buzz All About?
Buzz's five key features, as laid out in the event at Google HQ today, include:
Automatic friends lists (friends are added automatically who you have emailed on Gmail)
"Rich fast sharing" combines sources like Picasa and Twitter into a single feed, and it includes full-sized photo browsing
Public and private sharing (swap between family and friends)
Inbox integration (instead of emailing you with updates, like Facebook might, Buzz features emails that update dynamically with all Buzz thread content)
"Recommended Buzz" puts friend-of-friend content into your stream, even if you're not acquainted. Recommendations learn over time with your feedback.
Buzz lets you share photos, video, links to web sites, and other content from all over the web with your closest contacts or with the public at large.
It feels a whole lot like Facebook's newsfeed—or even more like FriendFeed, though fewer people ever got to know FriendFeed all that well—but it lives inside Gmail and integrates automatically with your most frequent Gmail contacts.
Apart from working directly inside Gmail, it can pull content from Twitter, from Flickr, and from various other popular social sites from across the web. Currently social services supported include:
Flickr
Twitter
Picasa Web
YouTube
Blogger
Any feed connected to your Google profile (like your blog)
When you publicly post something via Buzz, it automatically and instantaneously adds the post to your Google Profile page (which it creates for you if you haven't already created one). If you want to post privately, you can create and choose specific groups you want to share with—in what looks like an attempt to offer both the public aspects of Twitter and the private aspects of Facebook.
Buzz is (or will soon be) available as a new sidebar link in Gmail, but it also integrates with your Gmail inbox. If you're worried about email overload, here's the skinny—Buzz items end up in your inbox in three ways:
Someone comments on your stuff
You comment on something and other people continue the conversation.
Someone @'s you, Twitter style.
Buzz also suggests a Recommended Buzz, pulling content from users you aren't following using an algorithm based on what your friends like or are following. The idea is that they'll bring you the "good buzz" even if you're not friends with who's delivering it. If you don't agree with the recommended "good buzz", you can tell Google so and it'll tweak its algorithm, so hopefully it'll more closely match what you like next time.
When your friends post content that's not all that exciting ("ate a bagel for breakfast"), Buzz will attempt to identify it and automatically "collapse the bad buzz."
Buzz on Your Mobile Device
Google is also launching three different mobile products that integrate with Buzz.
First, they've integrated Buzz into the Google.com mobile homepage. The new homepage has small UI tweaks, but the big change is that the Buzz icon now appears in the upper right corner of the screen. Click on it and you can post to Buzz, but more importantly, when you click there, Buzz will find your location and turn it into a real place—not just an address, but an actual, meaningful place. (When demoing, Buzz asked the user "Are you at Google?") In normal use, it'll try placing you at wherever it thinks you are, whether it's a business, your home, a restaurant, or wherever.
A mobile Buzz webapp for Android and iPhone (available at buzz.google.com, screenshotted below) gives the user mobile-friendly version of Buzz, providing a stream of people you're following. You can also grab nearby buzz to see what people around you are saying (say you're at a concert and want to hear what people are saying about it).
Finally, Google Mobile Maps has added a new Buzz layer, which allows you to post to Buzz quickly from Google Maps. (We're doubting this will work on the iPhone soon because it would require Apple to update Google Maps, which it normally only does on OS updates, but it will likely be pushed out to other devices soon.) Like the webapp, you can post from the Maps app, it'll grab your location and snap you to a real place rather than just an address.
Google says they want Buzz to be the poster child for what it means to make a social tool that plays nice—one that has an open API, that respects the user's privacy decisions, and that doesn't lock up your data. (As opposed to some other popular social networks.)
Google Buzz in the Business
Last, Google explained that they'll eventually be adding Buzz to Google Apps accounts so businesses can use them internally, something that Google thinks will be a very important use in time.
Google Buzz will begin rolling out at 11am PST, and will continue slowly rolling out to users over the course of the next couple of days.
Interested? Let's hear what you think in the comments.
Google Buzz
Google Buzz in Gmail [Official Gmail Blog]
Introducing Google Buzz [Official Google Blog]
Introducing Google Buzz for mobile: See buzz around you and tag posts with your location. [Google Mobile Blog]
Readers: Get your Buzz on [Google Reader Blog]