«  |  »

Google Buzz Is Creating Quite a “Buzz” Among Social Media Users

By | February 17, 2010

Google Buzz

Exactly a week ago, Gmail users around the world noticed an interesting addition to their email accounts. Underneath their inbox was a new tab labeled “Buzz.” Although it may not have seemed immediately significant, this four-letter word has generated quite the impact. Buzz is Google’s boldest foray into social media yet - it allows users to instantly share thoughts, pictures, multimedia and social media feeds through their Gmail account. There has been some negative press regarding privacy issues with this new service, but all in all it seems as though Google has made a very smart move.

After only being widely available for a week, Google Buzz has experienced great success. Because it is wired directly into Gmail and users didn’t have to do anything to set it up, Buzz instantly gained over 38 million users in the United States alone. Look at that on a worldwide stage, and you’ve got some really impressive numbers.

So what exactly does Google Buzz allow you to do? First and foremost, you have access to its social media power the entire time you are signed into Gmail, which for many people is almost all day. In addition to this continuous and simple accessibility, some of the ways Buzz differentiates itself from other social media platforms is by allowing you to:

Because of these features, as well as several others, many users are quickly becoming fans of this newest wave of social media. According to an article published on Mashable entitled “Google Buzz Has Completely Changed the Game: Here’s How”, users have embraced Buzz because it:

Google had a few privacy issues to deal with regarding Buzz’s auto-following feature, but it quickly made some privacy tweaks, and appears to have been met with generous enthusiasm and a high volume of usage. Of course there are people who are less than pleased at the prospect of having to deal with yet another social media platform, and there are many who believe  Google is simply trying to monitor every piece of information available on the Web. However, we’ll let you decide – give Buzz a try and see if it adds to your social media experience. Check out the video below to get more detail on exactly how it works:

There’s talk that Buzz is going to provide some intense competition for other popular social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. It’s unlikely that Buzz will ever eliminate those two dominant forces, but judging from its initial success, it is likely to at least slow their growth. Buzz is an open platform, so it won’t be long before developers are coming up with all sorts of apps, analytics, and other traffic-driving forces to enhance it. Those involved in the world of the Web would be wise to monitor Buzz’s progress – it may be just another social media site, but with the power of Google behind it, it could become much more.

Photo provided by siliconmonkey on Flickr.

About the Author:

Abby Rossbach in an SEM copywriter at Fathom Online Marketing. She graduated from the University of Dayton with a Bachelor's degree in English and has been working in the SEO industry since 2009.

1 Comment »

Comments

1 Comment so far

  1. Video Games - February 28, 2010 at 8:19 pm

    I have it because I use igoogle all the time but I really haven't checked out all the features yet. I guess it just hasn't caught on with me yet.

One Response to “Google Buzz Is Creating Quite a “Buzz” Among Social Media Users”


* required