Google Takes Another Shot at Social Media Success with Buzz

Well, Google is taking it’s next stab at creating their own social media network. I was reading about Google Buzz this morning in Marketing Pilgrim and it seems interesting. Google Buzz will provide some “Wave Like” features in Gmail to try and create a social network out of an existing email network. Utilizing Gmail is the genius part of the plan, although it took them long enough to realize that they already had a network of people that were communicating with each other. The biggest issue I can see is how many people actually go to Gmail to check their email? I am sure there is a large percentage of Gmail users that only use the web but in the age of everyone owning a smart phone, that number must be diminishing. I am sure they will find a great way to integrate this into Android phones but they also need to create a new iPhone App that makes it easier to use all of Google’s great applications such as Google Reader and Google Voice. I can’t stand using web apps and that seems to be Google’s answer to iPhone users. Anyway, Google Wave, oh wait I mean Buzz, is certainly a step in the right direction but until they figure out a way to integrate it into the programs we use to check our Gmail, it will likely fall short of expectations. Brian Ratzker