What's the Buzz about Google's latest product?

I was really excited about getting an invitation to Google Wave a few months back -- and I was sure that Wave was going to take off and become an Internet phenomenon.

So much for my prognostication skills.

It's too early to pronounce Wave dead, but it hasn't taken off the way I thought it would. It may yet do so; there could still be some particular use of the product, as yet undefined, that will turn it from a novelty into a necessity.

So, with Google Wave freshly in my memory, I'm hesitant to say too much about Google Buzz, the social networking system announced last week by Google. Google Buzz allows you to post status updates like Twitter and Facebook as well as Facebook-style links to things. It operates from within GMail, Google's free, web-based e-mail service, and when you start using it it automatically finds people from your GMail address book and sets them up as contacts.

Privacy issue

That was the cause of a privacy complaint about Buzz. Because Buzz automatically harvested contacts from your GMail account, and because by default Buzz showed the people whom you were following on your public profile, Buzz had the immediate impact of automatically, and without any real warning, making public the list of people you e-mail most often.

The company has refined the signup process to make clear what is going on so that you can have a chance to control the process. I chose to turn off altogether the feature that displays my followers and followees on my public profile.

Google has, at least, responded promptly to the privacy gaffe. And there are aspects of the way Google Buzz functions that are appealing. But I think Buzz may have bigger problems.

Buzz, like Google Chat, is being promoted with the fact that it's integrated so tightly with GMail and Google Reader. That's makes Buzz easier to use, but it makes the outlandish assumption that you and all of your friends use GMail. It's possible to set up a GMail account just for the purpose of using Buzz, of course, and some people may do just that. Others have speculated that Google may eventually come up with a separate interface or web page for non-GMail Buzz users. But a social networking site is supposed to be about casting a wide net and communicating with a wide cross-section of friends, and it seems like something with an automatic limitation of only appealing to GMail customers defeats the purpose.

As for me, I used to have a straight GMail account but eventually set up Google Apps, a version of GMail and other Google services designed to work with groups or individuals who own their own domain names. I had de-activated my old GMail account. But Google Buzz isn't yet included with the Google Apps version of GMail, and so in order to try out Buzz I had to re-activate that old account.

There's also the fact that Twitter and Facebook are well-established. Some people aren't going to want to take on a third (or fourth or fifth, considering MySpace and Ning) social networking site. Those who do participate in more than one social network may be set up so that their status updates are automatically cross-posted among all of them.

Cross-posting

That raises another issue. For some writers, settting things up so that a single status update automatically cross-posts to Twitter, Facebook and now Buzz is a matter of convenience. But for some readers, like Christian Grantham, who until recently ran WKRN-TV's "Nashville Is Talking" web site, such cross-posting is considered an annoyance. Why should someone follow me on both Facebook and Twitter if the vast majority of what I do appears on both services and they have to read it twice? But if someone follows me on only one service, they may be missing unique content or features available on the other services.

Because of this social networking overload, some people who are already active on Facebook and Twitter may choose not to add Google Buzz to the mix. Others, though, will feel the need to stake a claim on any new social networking site that comes along.

Google is a smart, powerful and well-funded company, and it's dangerous to count them out too soon. It's possible that some Buzz features -- such as the location-based features which integrate with Google Maps -- will catch on and Buzz will someday supplant Facebook and/or Twitter.

I asked for comments about Google Buzz from followers of the T-G Twitter feed, through my personal Twitter feed, and through my blog at the T-G site

"Its interesting," wrote Daniel Shearon, "but so far hasn't added much that I don't get from Twitter and Facebook. I wonder what an open API would bring."

An API, to oversimplify, is a language that would allow outside programs to talk to Google Buzz. If Google were to open up the API for Buzz, third-party developers could create games or other applications that would work with Buzz, just as many companies have developed applications for Facebook.

Shawn Malone was unhappy to see Buzz pop up automatically as part of his GMail account.

"I may be in the minority," Malone wrote, "but I just do not want something like that even remotely connected to my e-mail account. I think that Google should still make it an 'opt in' feature, and it should be seperate from the e-mail account."

Gaming and outside applications aren't really part of Buzz yet, but surely they will be added at some point, and perhaps someone will develop a game or useful application for Buzz as popular as Farmville has been on Facebook. But right now, it seems to me like Buzz faces an uphill battle.

--John I. Carney is city editor of the Times-Gazette and covers county government. He is also the author of the self-published novel "Soapstone." His personal web site is lakeneuron.com.