Google Buzz – Explained in Easy to Understand Terms

We’re not all geeks – nor do we wish to be, and lets face it – who has the time?..

*cough* …Apart from me?

But you must have been living in a wardrobe the past week to not notice the *buzz* about Googles new offering – Google Buzz!

I know your heckles are going up as you feel you are expected to get to grips with yet another Web 2.0 site that probably does the same as all the others. You may have only recently caved in to the realm of Twitter (after much arm wrenching and persuasion from the marketplace), so why, oh why has Google gone and brought out something else and what will it do for us?

Well, the inner geek in me has been sucking up the Google Buzz goodness and now, for your ease of consumption – let me explain;

• Just what the heck it is
• Why you should be remotely interested
• And whether it’s going to be the new Twitter….

What the Heck is Google Buzz?

Google Buzz is Google answer to the new wave of social media. Unlike Twitter and Facebook who have built up their followship, Google already have millions of users as it’s integrated within the Gmail system.

This means that when you sign into your Gmail a/c (if you have one) you will get a message about Google Buzz and it’s integration. You just need to click to get some more info and set it up. If you don’t yet have a Gmail a/c then I would strongly advise you get one (more on that in a futher down).

Google Buzz is a real time platform – just like Twitter, but there are many differences and no doubt folks will question whether its enough to lure them away from Twitter and Facebook etc And I’m sure there are many loyal FBers and Tweeters who won’t see a need for an additional social network – but – I think you may want to hop on this one!

There are some great features within Buzz, the sharing of different media being the most notable. If you share a link then Buzz will pull back a selection of images for you to choose from as you will see from the image below.

As you can see from the image, you add your blurb and add your link and Buzz pulls back numerous images of which you can choose to enhance your ‘Buzz’ and encourage some more participation. You also get to follow people of interest and they can follow your Buzz stream too.

Check out the official Google Buzz video below for some further insight;

Do You Need To Use It?

Let’s take at a look at some of the facts; Google has hot wired themsleves into an instant hit because they’ve tapped into the vast Gmail userbase. This means that although some people will bitch and moan about it initially (remember the Twitter early days?) they will likely jump on board because Buzz is staring them in the face evertime they check their mail.

What if you don’t have a Gmail a/c?

This is something that I’ve heard a few people mention, they have an email a/c set up, have no intention of using Gmail and so on. Well, to be honest you should really be setting up a profile on Google as it’s a good place for people to be able to find you in the search.

Your Google profile is a great place to aggregate the various sites that you are active on.

You can add links to any sites of your choosing and name them what you want.

So I have the main sites that I am active on including my main business site, my blog, Twitter, Facebook fan Page and Friendfeed.

You will also notice that Buzz is now integrated within this page so you can keep up to date with what is happening.

Your Google profile is a great link to use in places like forum signatures because people can check out a ton of stuff from the one page!

I would encourage you to get a Gmail a/c and if nothing else, get yourself a profile page and start to use Buzz. If you want to, you can easily integrate your other email a/c’s into the one a/c over at Gmail.

If you are concerned about answering email from a Gmail a/c rather that from you@yourbusiness.com then fear not – as you can specify what address your email is sent from.

Gmail is an excellent mail server with some great features, plus there are so many other great applications available for free, once you have a Google a/c  – I really would encourage everyone to have one. But back to Buzz…

Will Buzz be the New Twitter or Facebook?

No! Twitter and Facebook are too established and google isn’t competeing (well…) – it’s more of an added enhancement. As things stand at the moment, you can integrate your Twitter feed into Buzz but there seems to be no plans for a Facebook integration – well, none have been mentioned thus far. This could be something that might deter the ultimate success of Buzz and really an issue that I would hope would be addressed.

There are also a few issues with Tweets being aggregated in chunks, so someone following your ‘Buzz’ might suddenly see a stream of your Tweets and not realize that you tweeted them over a long period of time – the consequence of this is that it has the potential to make you look a bit spammy. But, I believe this is a temporary glitch and will be addressed – in the meantime, I have turned my Twitter stream off.

And although you can aggregate your tweets, you can’t post to Twitter directly from Buzz yet – something else that would need addressing.

Bearing in mind that within two and a half days of buzz being rolled out, Google reported over 9 million posts and comments which averaged out around 160,000 comments an hour – that is HUGE!

So if you sat on the fence over Twitter and only joined in after peer pressure from the masses, why not be a pioneer in Buzz and check it out now. At the end of the day it can’t be ignored – with a user base that far surpasses Twitter, Google Buzz looks like it is here to stay and we all know that the masses go where the cool kids hang – and Google Buzz is set to be cooler than a penguins ______.

Of course, in an ideal world we’d be able to take the best parts from all three giants of Social Networking because as a user we neither have the time nor the inclination to keep flitting from one site to another.

So what are your thoughts on Buzz?

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