Google is starting to make some significant moves that may give Google Buzz a significant boost. For example, this week, a “Reshare” button was announced. This is essentially Google’s version of the retweet. If you follow a Buzz user who posts an interesting update, you can hit the “reshare” button (down with the comment, like, and email buttons) to repost that post to your own Buzz stream. Reshare only works for public posts. Private posts will not have the reshare link. However, you can reshare posts yourself publicly or privately. If a lot of people you follow reshare the same post, the similar posts will be collapsed.
“You’ll notice that resharing creates a new post, effectively forking the conversation. To fork or not fork was a decision we debated for a while,” says Buzz software engineer Sam Goto. “Ultimately, we think forked conversations help create more varied, intimate discussions around a single item. We realize people may want a non-forking version too, so we’re thinking about how to do that as well.”
“When there is a chain of reshares, the names of all of the people who publicly reshare the post appear on the original item, even if they’re not directly connected to the original author,” Goto explains. “If you share something that ends up getting passed around by lots of other people, it’s pretty cool to see that.”
It’s also worth noting that you can “like” a reshare, and that will not translate to a “like” for the original post. This means you can like a comment without liking what the comment is about.
Google also announced that it’s releasing an XHTML version of the Buzz website which can be accessed from many mobile devices like those running Android pre-2.0, Blackberry, Nokia S60, and Windows Mobile. This could go a long way for getting Buzz used by mobile users across a broader range of devices.
Google Buzz launched earlier this year to a great deal of hype – and why not – a potential Facebook/Twitter competitor from the giant that is Google – but much of the “buzz” about Buzz has faded in the months since. In fact, most of the discussion in the media about Buzz has been centered around privacy issues (though that has become considerably less rampant…Facebook has filled that role nicely).
As we’ve been saying since long before Buzz was announced, the key to a Google social network offering is in the integration with its other products. This made launching Buzz within Gmail seem like a smart move, but there is still much work to be done if Buzz is to become a real player in the space.
Adding features, such as the reshare feature is a start, but what may have a more significant impact was an announcement that came last week.
During Google I/O, I attended a session in which Google quietly announced the launch of the Buzz API. The news was generally overshadowed by other Google announcements, such as the unveilings of Google TV and FroYo, but with developers getting access to the Buzz API, there is room for much to be done around the service in terms of third-party apps, which should ultimately make Buzz much more useful. That’s what happened with Twitter. Developers like TweetDeck, Boxee, Buzzzy, Klout, Meebo, Seesmic, Vinehub, Shareaholic, and other have already taken advantage of the Buzz API.
It’s hard to say if the general public will find a real need for Buzz alongside Facebook, Twitter and other services, but as Google grows its presence in mobile via Android, and soon into television via Google TV, there will be more potential gateways for Buzz adoption, as well as integration.
Update 2: A Google spokesperson says the full-text issue is not a Google-specific problem. “It is possible for Bloggers to prevent their full content from showing in Buzz just like in Reader –it depends on how they set up their feed. If a blog owner wants to not show their whole blog, they have to use whatever tools they are using to create their feed to set it to not syndicate the entire post.”
Update: So far, Google has referred me to the same response they gave Stay, but I’ve inquired further. We’ll keep you posted.
Original Article: If you were under the impression that the controversy surrounding Google Buzz was starting to die down, think again. So far, we’ve mostly heard about privacy issues, which Google has publicly addressed. They’ve also made changes based on user feedback. Now, we’re hearing about possible copyright issues. Google appears to be republishing full articles without permission, and stripping out any ads that may be in those articles.
One can easily see why any blogger or publisher wouldn’t be very pleased with this scenario. Not only are they serving up full articles that others have written without sending authors the traffic or even ad clicks, but if a user reads the article through Buzz within their Gmail account, they will likely see the ads Google itself serves.
Blogger Jesse Stay of Stay N’ Alive brings the subject up in a post, claiming that this is exactly what is happening to his content. However, Google did respond to him, saying they would “have the ad scraping issue fixed by next week.” That would solve one problem, but presumably, this doesn’t change the fact that they are showing full article text, which is an interesting choice on Google’s part, considering the controversy surrounding how Google News aggregates publishers’ content.
That is a different situation entirely, because Google News does not publish full articles (unless they come from one of their partners). They simply provide a title, small snippet, and link to the original source, hence driving traffic to that source. Based on Stay’s story, Google will not likely be driving much traffic by showing full articles in Buzz. We’ve contacted Google for comment on this (we’ll post when we receive it).
One might compare reading an article through Buzz to reading one through a feed reader, like Google Reader. Sometimes you can read a feed in its full text, but the author has the ability to prevent this. With Buzz, the full-text articles appear to be coming simply from people sharing the articles, which is out of the author’s control (we asked Google if their is a way authors can prevent this…again, we’ll post a response when we receive it).
Google held a press event to announce the most “buzzed” topic of the week – Google Buzz. This is Google’s new product, which is being compared to social networks like Twitter and Facebook. It is integrated with Gmail and other Google products, and appears to be one of the missing links in tying Google together as a social network, a concept we’ve discussed repatedly.
Editor’s Note: The bulk of this article was written before the announcement was made and has been adjusted to reflect the announcement itself, after liveblogging the press event.
Google says Buzz has five key elements:
1. Auto Following
2. Rich, Fast Sharing experience…
3. Support for public and private sharing….
4. In-box integration
5. Just the good stuff…
Watch the video below to get a general idea of what Buzz does.
Buzz will show a thumbnail of a YouTube video and make it easy to play in line. With photos, they will show thumbnails, but Google built a custom photo viewer, which lets you flip through pictures and see them “big and fast”. If you share links, it will automatically fetch headlines and photos from the post (similar to Facebook). You can “like” and “unlike” stuff, and expand comments. It works with keyword shortcuts from Gmail.
Public/Private sharing – The post box will let you post updates publicly or privately. If it’s public, it will go to your Google profile, and is indexed by Google’s real-time search. You can share privately, and it will let you send to groups and custom groups.
In your in-box, you will see buzz notifications that contain real-time comments. It sits in the same in-box as your regular email, but you can move between your regular in-box and your Buzz stuff. It integrates it right into Gmail.You can also use “@” for replies like with Twitter.
While Google Buzz is presented as a Gmail feature, it goes well beyond Gmail. For one, all public updates you post will be posted to your Google profile page, (which is searchable). In addition, Google launched three new mobile products for Buzz:
1. The ability to use Buzz from www.Google.com on iPhone/Android
2. Brand new app at buzz.google.com
3. Maps Update for Nokia Symbian/ Android.
Mobile could be one of the biggest keys to the success of this product. Google says Google.com is the world’s most popular mobile home page, and Buzz can be accessed from there on iPhone and Android devices. Android’s popularity is growing quickly too.
Buzz will find your location (if you let it) and snap your updates to that location. With the Google Maps feature, you can see what people are saying based on location. You can even use voice recognition to post buzz updates by voice.
Search Implications
Buzz posts get indexed by search from the page that its posted to (the Google Profile page), just like anything else on the web. Google says they don’t do anything special to promote it in SERPs.
Google didn’t really talk about social search with regards to Buzz, but it would not be surprising to see Buzz updates integrated these into social search, which recently became part of the web search norm. Your Gmail contacts are the first people listed in your “social circle” that Google draws from for these results.
If Buzz content appears in both real-time search results and social search results, that’s two good-sized chunks of SERP real-estate. Not all SERPs have both or either, but it opens some additional search marketing doors. The feature would also open up more reputation management issues, as simply an additional place to monitor, not to mention other ways businesses are currently using services like Facebook and Twitter for marketing.
How Else Could Google Buzz Be Used for Business?
Buzz may benefit businesses as an orgnizational tool. The first thing that comes to mind is the expansion of communication with existing contacts. When you’re frequently seeing what your Gmail contacts are saying, it will not only keep those people fresh in your mind, but it can cultivate further communication.
The feature could possibly lend to better organization of your communication, which could in turn save time. Again, depending on how many of the possibilities (if any) mentioned in this article actually come to fruition, it could become a central place for that communication. The more services Buzz gets integrated with, the better it could become for organization.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin says he wrote an op-ed piece, posted it to Google Buzz, and quickly had 50 comments, and edited based on feedback. He finds it efficient as an editing tool.
Competition
Before it even launched, a lot of people suggested that Google’s product could never compete with Facebook and Twitter, but I was not and am still not so quick to rule out the possibility. No, it’s not likely to come out and kill those two, but that’s not to say that it can’t co-exist, and gain popularity of its own, if Google makes the right moves in integrating it with its other products. It’s already off to a good start on that (especially with the Google mobile home page).
How well the product can compete is directly related to what possibilities Google explores. Even if a lot of options aren’t explored immediately, that’s not to say they won’t be slowly. Google has a way of adding a feature here, and adding a feature there to its different products. Before you know it, things are more connected than you may have realized.
It’s not all bout Gmail. According to comScore, Gmail had 176 million unique visitors in December, but how many people have actual GOOGLE accounts? You don’t have to be a Gmail user to have one, and Google is increasingly finding more ways to draw people in through various products.
Facebook is supposedly working on its own email product, which could directly compete with Gmail. Between that and Google Buzz, the competition might be heating up between the two companies more than ever, but it still doesn’t mean they can’t co-exist. Will it even matter as more third-party apps begin supporting everything? It’s very possible that these updates will be portable among all of these different services anyway, and they could even support each other in the future. Facebook has had no problem with posting updates to Twitter. Last year, Google actually made a big deal about its initiative to make user data as portable as possible. They formed the Data Liberation Front to “make it easier for users to move their data in and out of Google products.”
More Possibilities for Google Buzz
Google says it wants Buzz to be as open as possible. That means there is plenty of room to grow and increase integration with different services. The company says it will be wired up to other parts of Google and other parts of the Internet. Facebook Connect integration is “something they’ll think about”, but it’s not happening yet. Google says it will bring Twitter content in, but will not yet let you push it out to Twitter…yett. That could change in time. Think about being able to do all of your social media and email communication from one place. That is something Mozilla is trying to develop with its in-progress Raindrop project. What if Google was able to do it with an established product like Gmail? Google says theyr’e “just getting started” with Buzz.
I think it’s safe to expect Buzz integration with a lot of other Google features. Google has already said that it places Wave as “high on the list of things they can do” as far as integration.
Google could potentially integrate the feature with any product it chooses (and it has a lot to choose from). What if it became available with the click of a button on the Chrome browser (which is gaining popularity)? What if it were integrated with the already social Google Reader? Google Docs? Wave? There could be a Google gadget, for users’ iGoogle home pages. There are a lot of ways tha Google could potentially get people using Buzz. Google says Buzz will be launched as an enterprise product eventually as well.
On a sidenote, it’s pretty interesting that Google and Yahoo both now have products called “Buzz.”
